Better Safe Than Sorry

Still storing all that is precious to you on your computer for safe keeping?

Don’t learn the hard way. Waiting until you log on to your computer and find the black hole of a monitor screen greeting you will be tragic. Worse yet, is the moment your computer disappears or is completely destroyed by other unexpected disasters.

Don’t be confused about which online backup services best suits your needs.

Mozy has gotten rave reviews in many respectable publications. Genie Backup Manager Home has won enough awards to decorate the coat of a 5-star General. Both allow your backed up files to be stored online, then downloaded to any Mac or Windows computer. Mozy currently supports only Mac and Windows XP; Genie works with Windows 2000 through Vista operating systems.

Mozy is free for up to 2GB of online backup service.

Free is good, right? Sometimes, the answer to that question is yes. Most home PC users don’t require that much storage for family photos and tax returns. If you are into music, game and video files, you will require more. Mozy stored files go through two different types of encryption, ensuring your data is safe. Genie Home 8.0 uses AES, the level of encryption used by the US government for data security.

Genie Home offers online backup storage starting at 5MB for $49.95 a year.

You may think that free is better than $50 a year, but there are drawbacks to “free” not found in products one pays for. There is nothing wrong with Mozy’s free service. It is a strong house for people who have basic online backup storage needs. Genie Backup Manager Home is more suited to small businesses where hours of sluggish computer performance while files are backing up is unacceptable. Bear in mind that Mozy, can be programmed to run backup in the middle of the night when your computer is idle.

Does disaster only strike at 2:00 AM?

Wouldn’t it be grand if we could schedule a house fire, power surge or a hacker invasion? Completely impossible; you really need online backup storage, the wisest choice for offsite file protection. Mozy backs up your files directly to an online storage area. Genie Backup Manager Home backs files up on your desktop and transfers them via FTP to private, secure online storage. Genie uses more space on your hard drive than Mozy, but speed and loss of downtime versus space could be more valuable to some computer users.

Both offer full security features, no matter what plan you enroll in.

Some users of both systems report that Genie Backup Manager Home 8.0 makes it easier to organize and retrieve your online backup storage files than with Mozy. The choice is difficult, but will is dependent on how you use your computer. Those who use their PC for business or large media files need far more backup and relocating power than the person who stores family photos and their tax returns.