Losing everything or sleeping tight

True mobile working is scary. If your entire business relies on the data you have on your laptop then the risks involved in taking that with you on the road, all day, every day with the constant prospect of hardware failure, accidental damage, theft, stupidity (read leaving it in a taxi after a couple of drinks) is something that should keep you awake at night.

Since starting my own business, I've become acutely aware of how much I stand to lose if anything happens to my data. I've got an external drive at home for backup but that relies on me remembering to back the data up. This is something that, even with pre-set Outlook reminders, happens at best once a week.

My most valuable data is that which is created most recently. The presentation I'm going to give at the next client, the proposal I'm working on to generate more work, the brief that a client sent through to me this morning for my comments.

So imagine my relief to find that there is a service that caters for me. I've signed up to use Mozy. There are a few competitors out there so I'm not endorsing Mozy specifically other than to say that for less than £2.50 a month, it means I can once again sleep at night. Wherever I am, if I'm connected to the internet and the computer is idle for 10 minutes, Mozy kicks in and uploads my latest documents to the on-line backup store.

I know there are potential concerns about privacy with on-line services, I know that it would take a long time to recover all my data (it took the best part of a week to complete the initial 15.5Gb upload), but I also know that if anything goes wrong, I can go to any computer, log-in and download that important file for the meeting I'm having in 30 minutes.

It's easy to kid yourself that it won't happen to you, or that you'll remember to back up regularly but for me, despite the potential pitfalls, I'd rather sleep tight...