Microsoft has an online offering called Windows Live Mesh at mesh.com.

This service provides a free, 5 gigabyte online desk top that will automatically synchronize with designated folders on your computer.

Mesh is not a backup service, but does serve that function, and I decided to use Mesh for backing up my critical data.

I considered using a number of the fee based online services that backup all your data, such as Mozy, Carbonite and Acronis, but I went with Mesh.

Mesh automatically synchronizes the folders on your computer whenever a file changes with the online desktop.

You can access your online desktop from any web browser on any computer, so your files are available to you wherever you go.

If you are away from computer and your computer is on, you can change your files online and you can have Mesh automatically copy the changes you made online back to your computer.

Since Mesh is limited to 5 gigabytes, I decide to look through my data and see what I really had.

Yikes, lots of stuff I never look at.

So, I decided to break my data into three groups.

1. Multimedia files, movies, pictures, music. I have hundreds of gigabytes of this stuff, too much to backup online. I copy to external hard drives for backup.

2. Old data that I have not looked at in a while. I moved all this under a folder I called Archive. This is all backed up on external hard drives and I do not need this on my Live Mesh desktop.

3. Current data. This is under a folder for my current documents and consists of all my data that I use and change, programs, finances, articles, notes, customer information and the like. This is the folder I synchronized with Live Mesh.

So, my current data is backed up in real time, automatically online.

My multimedia, old data and current data is backed up to external hard drives using a program I run on occassion. I have a number of external hard drives and store these in my office and stashed around at other locations.

All my data is backed to external hard drives that are easily accessible with both in office and offsite backups.

NOTE: July 16, 2010 Windows Live Mesh is going away. The principles in this article still apply. Read article here for new implementation.

www.internethandholding.com/Articles/tabid/153/Internet_Marketing/203/Windows-Live-Mesh-Going-Away-Use-Windows-Live-Synch-and-Sky-Drive.aspx

By Andrew Weitzen (c) 2010

Weitzen is the publisher of several online Internet journals including: InternetHandholding.com, DomainNames.gs, DotNetNuke.bz, Programmer.bz, Software.vg, WebHosting.vg