It's going to happen. Hard drives fail, and when they fail you will lose data. Computers have been around long enough that we can't pretend that hardware lasts forever. By now, most everyone is aware of this fact, and some have even taken the first step to preventing data loss by using an external hard drive... but this still requires planning, scheduling, and evolving as storage needs increase and even home networks become more complex. I've already reviewed SuperDuper for the Mac which is still the best local backup solution I've seen, but what if you still something more?
CrashPlan is an online backup service that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux and lets you backup your files to other computers and/or their centralized "cloud" storage service. For several months, I was using the free service which lets you backup your computers to one another so you can distribute the backups among several locations. Once the software is installed, and the backup destinations are set, CrashPlan just runs in the background, constantly backing up your designated files to the computers you've tagged as destinations. Once a computer has been backed up, you can also access data from that backup from any other computer that has access to that account. This was really useful when upgrading the hard drive in @babymama's computer. I created a backup from her laptop onto my computer, and then once the new hard drive was installed, I could just copy files back down from the backup. The best part is that once you've set it up, you really don't have to think about it, and if for some reason a computer hasn't been backed up for a few days, it will even send you an email or twitter alert to notify you of that fact -- all of this as part of the free service.
However, as my storage needs increased (thanks to an adorably photogenic two year old daughter) and "my" computer network became more complex (thanks to me being the resident "Goto Tech guy" for my entire family), I decided it was time to move up to the paid service. For $12/month, you can backup an UNLIMITED amount of data from 2-10 computers to their servers. And if you pre-pay for 4 years of service, the price drops down to only $6/month. For $6 worth of peace of mind, I can now backup my laptop, my desktop, my wif'e's computer, my sister's computer, my parents' computers, my media center and still have 3 slots available for additional computers down the line. The next time I get a call that "my computer's hard drive is making a clicking noise", rather than waste a weekend trying to recover files off an uncooperative drive, I'll be able to log into my CrashPlan account and download the backups to a new drive.
Don't wait until you've "learned your lesson the hard way". The price point is low enough and the automation software is advanced enough that there's no reason not have a backup solution in place.
