jungle disk plus amazon's s3 account equals easy, reliable, cheap online backup. amazon's s3 service provides unliited storage for a megar fifteen cents a month. even if you were to backup twenty gb it would only cost you #3.40 a month. there is only one flaw to this setup, amazon provides no user interface for this system. it was designed for developers who would already have an interface or could very easily make one. so how do the rest of us get to enjoy this service? jungle disk. it comes with a free thirty day trial, after which it is only a one time purchase of $20 and your good for life for however many computers you want to put it on. it can run in the background on a schedule or at the click of a button and only backup the files which have been updated since its last backup in the areas you designate. the only problem i have with the program is that the scheduler only runs at the scheduled time, not at the next time the computer is turned on after the scheduled time. so if you want it to run on monday at 8:00 the computer needs to already be on at 8:00 but if you turn it on at 8:05 it won't auto-run, you'll need to start it manually. but, according to the faq, they are working to change this.

why backup files? hard drives fail, accidental deleting, your idiot of a sibling... why backup online? fires, floods, burglary, missing cds/dvds, your idiot of a sibling... if you are only backing up to a disk, if that disk is still next to your computer than that natural disaster which destroys your hard drive will destroy your disk also and now both your computer and your backup are gone. the backup needs to placed offsite and there is no easier, more reliable way to do that than on a redundant server system such as amazon.com

get jungle disk here