• Note: this blog post was originally published March 10, 2009 but the advice is as good as ever. Mozy is offering me a small referral bonus of additional storage space if you sign up. So…full disclosure, blah blah blah; this is more about you than me, but I do get a tiny spiff of extra Mozy megabytes if you click on my referral link and sign up for the free account.

OK, gang, I’m sitting here restoring a few hundred document files to my reformatted and newly-OS’d hard drive while the thunder rolls, and the lightning strikes (thank you, Garth).

And it reminds me how desperately EVERYONE needs to backup their files. Unless you’re storing all of your documents and work-in-progress in the “cloud” (Google Docs, etc.), you really need to back up your important files. I guarantee you will be burned by NOT doing this…something will happen and the technician (or neighbor) will say, “so…we’ve fixed your computer, now where are your backups?”

I’ve been a big fan of Mozy, an online backup service that offers you 2 gigabytes of FREE storage. Online. While you sleep. Securely. Somewhere out there…beneath the pale moonlight (thank you, Linda Rondstadt).

So here’s what I want you to do. Stop what you’re doing right now, and go here and sign up for the “Mozy Free” account. It really is free, and it really does work.

When your computer goes kaput, you’ll be so glad you did this. I’ve found their service to be very reliable and intensely easy to use. It’s basically a “set it and forget it” thing — your files are backed up and you never need to worry. Obviously, they’d like you sign up for a higher-capacity paid option, and you probably should — but for now, at least take this step and start backing up your stuff.

Thank me later, when lightning takes out your computer, and you gleefully restore everything with a few clicks.