Tech Tuesday: New and cheap backup solution!

I’ve posted previously on how to backup your computer files, and I’ve recommended services such as Carbonite to do the job for you.

While Carbonite is a very affordable solution (less than $50 a year) I know that for some people in this economy even $50 a year is a bit expensive. Especially since, and we all hope this, you NEVER have to rely on ever retrieving your backup. I mean, it’s really an insurance policy and unfortunately when money is tight insurance is one of the first things to go.

So I’ve been researching inexpensive ways to backup files, because after the Great Laptop Meltdown of 2008, which I experienced personally this past January, I learned how important it is to backup your files. Luckily, I only lost a fraction of the over 10 years of personal and business files that I had accumulated! What a relief!

This new backup solution that I just learned about is inexpensive and easy, but because of it’s small price it’s not automatic. I know, I know…what happened to doing things automatically “Miss Automatic Mom”?!

Ok, you’ve got me…sometimes I (gasp!) do things in a non-automatic way, especially if there is potential money savings involved. While I still use Carbonite, I decided that I would test this new backup solution and see how user-friendly it really was.

In order to do this, you need to have a web hosting account with Dreamhost. They recently decided to gift each customer with 50GB of separate “backup space” that would not be visible to the world in your regular hosting account. What I mean by this is that if you were to create a separate folder on one of your websites and password protect it, it would technically be safe, but still vulnerable to a big-time hacker who knows what he or she is doing.

So to get around this issue, since Dreamhost knew people were taking part of their hosting space and using it for file backup anyway, they decided just to create a separate “backup” section of each hosting account for people to use! They partition out 50GB of your existing space that you have in your account (if you remember from a previous post, Dreamhost starts everyone out with a pretty ample amount of disk space and increases it each week you are a customer) and then they create a new “user” and “password” for you to use to enter into your FTP program. So now, you would have two logins…one to upload files to your various websites and one to upload files to your backup space.

Here’s the fine print….these backup spaces are not subsequently backed up by Dreamhost like your regular files on your server for your websites. The reasoning is that this is a “backup” of your personal files anyway so you should already have a copy. So these aren’t redundant backups of backups. Does that make sense? So basically, they are saying that they offer this service, but don’t rely on this as your sole source of backed up files. If you are currently not backing up at all, this is definitely better than nothing, and in my eight years or so as a customer of Dreamhost, I’ve never had a data loss anyway.

They allow you to use 50GB of space in that section, and if you go over 50GB they charge you just an additional 10 cents per GB! Hello cheap! So just backup your pictures and important files and leave the applications and other replaceable things to chance (or use one of the free backup solutions I’ve mentioned before to handle those).

What I like about this solution is that the backup happens at the point of usage but the files are stored remotely. This is the best setup, where your files are backed up pretty easily right from your screen (i.e. FTP program) and stored elsewhere. Backing up to blank DVD’s is cheap too, but then you have your files stored on disks likely in the same place where your computer is anyway. Unless you take the disks to a bank safe deposit box (which I highly recommend if you have a safe deposit box anyway) if there were to be a natural disaster or fire, both copies could be destroyed.

So this Dreamhost solution is a nice one for anyone who is thinking that a remote backup solution is out of their reach financially. Right now, Dreamhost is also having a sale where the first 1111 customers will receive unlimited disk storage and unlimited transfer (bandwidth) for the life of the account. It’s to celebrate their 11th year in business. Accounts start at just $5.95 a month depending on how many years you prepay. I personally recommend that you get an account that costs $9.95 per month paid one year in advance because you avoid the $49.95 setup fee for paying monthly that way. Alternatively, you can use this coupon code: AUTOMATICMOMS and receive an instant $50 credit to your account to wipe out that setup fee anyway if you would rather pay monthly! If you decide to go with one year paid in advance, you’ll avoid the $50 setup fee, PLUS you will still get a $50 credit to your account!

You’ll pay for hosting somewhere else anyway, so why not consolidate and host all of your sites together (no charge for additional sites by the way, you can host as many individual sites as you want for the same low price) and get the backup section for free too?! Plus, the $50 coupon code (AUTOMATICMOMS) plus, a free domain name registration on all new accounts! If the economy has you worried about your business expenses, this is an easy way to trim them and do the backups you need to be doing anyway!

Click here to check out Dreamhost and use coupon code AUTOMATICMOMS for $50 off and a free domain name registration to go with your 50GB of backup space.