Filesanywhere.com

September 10, 2005 · Comments

After all my [hunting around](http://www.momathome.com/viewfromhome/2005/09/mtbf.php) at cross-platform offsite backup solutions, I’ve definitely decided not to replace my dead Firewire drive and I’m sticking with [Filesanywhere.com](http://www.filesanywhere.com). I figured out how to use their PC desktop application to backup to two different Filesanywhere accounts (one for work, one for personal). It was ridiculously easy, I just wasn’t looking in the right place. Every night at 2 am it just does its thing. I can log in using any web browser on Mac or PC and confirm that the files are there and in good shape. Once a week, I have scheduled a larger (approx. 30GB) backup to the external drive attached to the PC for good measure. This catches things like my iTunes music folder and fonts folders which don’t change all that often but are too big to backup offsite.

It’s $28.95 a month for my 8GB account which backs up my “I would NOT be a fun person to be around if these files were lost” stuff every night. A bit of a chunk but worth it *if it just works* which so far, it appears to be doing just that. Still amazes me that services like [Backjack](http://www.backjack.com) charge $210 for the same 8GB of storage. Are they kidding? And you have [.Mac](http://www.mac.com) which gives you a grand 250MB of space. What can you store in 250MB? Word files, sure. But throw in a few pictures or maybe your email and you’re over that limit real fast. So $30 a month for peace of mind it is. Filesanywhere appears to be a very stable company that has been around for years, they answer email within 24 hours and a human being answers their phone. Good enough for me.

The only other down side is that it relies on my PC to work. If my PC is down for any reason (goodness forbid) I can’t backup the Mac automatically. The good thing about Filesanywhere is that it does have a fine web-based interface and the files can be accessed with any FTP application.

Hard drives simply aren’t made like they used to be. Particularly if they’re in PCs, it seems. It happened to [David Pogue, too.](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/technology/circuits/08POGUE-EMAIL.html?oref=login) He says it well:

>As you now know, every hard drive will one day fail. Or, as one reader put it: “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who back up, and those who will.”

One day if I have a free and adventurous moment I may try and figure out what went wrong with my dual enclosure drives. Chances are, at least one drive is in fine shape and perhaps the other one could be restored in a different enclosure.

Related posts: