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The Joys of Buddy Backup

Like many of you, I have ex-wives, grown children, distant relatives, and friends who walk my aged dog when I go to exciting places like Orlando for Storage Networking World next week. They look to me as the guru of tech support. Unfortunately, some of them are as technically astute as the aforementioned aged golden retriever and run small businesses, so I've become very careful about what I recommend to them.

Of course, despite the many tape drives, zip drives, external USB disks, and other software I've set them up with, none of them ever remember to make a backup. So I'm always on the lookout for a good backup solution that's almost idiotproof. Marks's Third Law, named after its discoverer -- my brother -- who's cursed with being CIO at a law firm, states: "You can't make things idiotproof. Idiots are too inventive."

So I looked for a backup solution that:

  • Runs automatically in the background.
  • Doesn't run on a schedule at night (they turn the PC off to save the planet).
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