Twice I’ve experienced the dreaded “blue screen of death” on my PC and nearly lost my hard drive. Fortunately my computer savvy husband has been able to rescue me both times, but it freaked me out enough to immediately backup what files I could to a DVD for safe keeping. Of course being a mom of four means I constantly forget things, including picking my girls up from school on occasion, and one of those things is consistently backing up my files. Basically I have a total of two DVDs, the most recent one at least a few months old. As a business owner and digital-photo uploader, this is not good. What I need is something that will back up my files on a regular basis without my even thinking about it. That something is MozyForMoms.com.

Mozy is one of the most trusted online backup services for consumers and businesses–and I believe it since I’ve heard seen references to Mozy everywhere online, including one of my favorite organizational sites, Unclutterer. How does it work? In a nutshell, copies of your backed-up files are securely stored in world-class data centers, protecting them against data loss as a result of computer failure. (By the way the most common forms of data loss are hard drive crash (hello, been there, almost done that!), theft, loss, viruses (definitely been there), natural disaster and accidental deletion (I have four kids–the odds of this happening are high!).

“With the recent explosion in digital information, moms are accumulating massive amounts of irreplaceable digital family photos and videos, music collections, business documents, financial documents and more.” Massive amounts is right! Thanks to TodaysMama I was able to give Mozy a test drive for the Daily Dish. When I went in to select the files to backup, it was some serious Gig-age! I found out the initial backup of your files can take days, even weeks, which makes sense since you need to be working while the files are being copied. Mine actually took just a few days, but because I could choose how much of my bandwidth Mozy used, my connection while working wasn’t noticeably affected. And at night I could let it speed things up since I didn’t need to be online!

Since then it’s already done a routine backup, which takes a lot less time since Mozy is only backing up new or changed portions of files. (We’re talking minutes rather than hours or days). And new and changed files are automatically detected and backed up! It’s that routine backup I love most. One less thing to add to my to-do list, which already has far too many items not getting done… Mozy also:

• supports Windows and Mac OS X operating systems.
• protects all files during the backup processwith end-to-end encryption.
• backs up open and locked files; no need to close down critical applications during the backup process.
• offers near continuous data protection, meaning new and changed files are automatically detected and backed up.
• retains 30 days worth of file versions.

If you want to give Mozy a test drive, MozyHome offers everyone 2 GB of free storage. While this won’t cover your child’s recent 1st-birthday photo shoot it will let you backup some important documents. Paid subscriptions cost $4.95 per month and will allow you to back up a heck of a lot more files, and discounts are given for yearly and biennial billing. And when you sign up for a new account, you get to choose a super cool Mozy t-shirt as a thank-you. These are my faves:

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I have a feeling I’ll be “Mozy-ing” all year long, which is a nice break from the fast-paced life I’m currently leading. Okay, so it may not slow down my 16-hour days but at least it won’t slow down my connection! AND if I ever suffer from the “blue screen of death” again, I’ll be covered! –Emily

*** Giveaway!!! In connection with this review, TodaysMama is giving away five (5) one-year unlimited accounts from Mozy! Click here to enter. (Seriously, enter the giveaway. This is well worth a minute or two of your non-backed-up time!) Good luck!