"Something doesn't exist until it exists in two separate places at a minimum. Even better is to have it in three places." - Alex Lindsay (founder of the Pixel Corps)

This is my new philosophy and I'm taking it seriously. I'm even taking it a step further and unless something is in two places locally, and one the cloud (net), it doesn't exist. I can't afford to keep losing my data, especially my images and art they are precious and irreplaceable. I had sunk three hours into a project that I've now had to redo. If I had more projects on the go I could have lost countless, expensive hours for no reason. But this is all going to change. The minute I get my new machine (two weeks, one day without a computer, who's counting?) I'm installing a backup system. This will involve my external hard-drive and an online service.

I'm currently going between three services and I'll update when I finally install one.

1. Mozy

Lifehacker loves Mozy, they wrote an entire post about it and made it part of their essential applications for Mac OSX this year. Mozy features an application which manages your backups securely to their servers and locally, all at the same time. With features designed to ensure that it will backup without affecting your computer activity this is currently the front runner.
Pricing: Up to 2GB for free, $4.95 USD /month for unlimited data.

Set up a Foolproof and Fireproof Automatic Backup Plan by Jason Fitzpatrick on Lifehacker

2. Carbonite

Leo Laporte and the TWiT network are the promoters of Carbonite. Carbonite is a frequent sponsor and I'm a big fan of the guys on TWiT and would trust that they wouldn't be shilling a lame product. Carbonite works much the same way as Mozy, it has an application and has lots of options and choices for automatic backup. It looks like it completely shuts down when you're using your computer, only using your idle time to do it's thing. The reason why I'd probably use Mozy over Carbonite is the local backup solution which I can't find on Carbonite.

Carbonite also offers helpful stats, did you know that only 3 out of 100 stolen laptops are ever recovered *tear* and that 13% of hard drives crash in their first year. Paranoid yet?
Pricing: £41.95 /year (around 64.00 CAD, 62.00 USD), unlimited data. Discounts for multiple year subscriptions.

2.5 Dropbox

Dropbox isn't really a backup utility but I'd throw it in here anyway. If you haven't checked out Dropbox yet you are doing yourself a serious disservice. I was fortunate to have a lot of the files I was currently working on in my Dropbox, keeping them safe and sound. Dropbox is online storage that syncs between all your machines and your phone. They describe it whimsically as a "magic pocket". I use Dropbox to go between home and Smallbox all the time. I keep my most recent projects in there in case I get sick or I have to work from home suddenly. I also use it to work on my freelance projects during my lunch hour and transfer music. It's brilliant, please visit the website and install it, I haven't used a USB stick or cd for storage in a year. Technically I think you can use it as a backup utility but without a specific backup app I'd be back to doing it manually which is how I ended up here in the first place. Also just so you know it's easy to add and disconnect systems if for instance your laptop gets stolen.
Pricing: Up to 2GB for free, $9.99 USD /month for 50GB, $19.99 USD /month for 100GB.

I'll let you know which way I went but if you made it this far I just want to remind you :

"Something doesn't exist until it exists in two separate places at a minimum."