backblaze is an extremely easy and inexpensive (USD 5 per month) way to backup all your data online, i.e. if you have enough bandwidth to burn. setup is as simple as running an installer which installs a preference pane and prompts you for your account details, after that backblaze goes to work and starts backing up automatically. btw. according to backblaze’s website all data is stored safely and encrypted before it gets uploaded, so your data should be safe and sound.

restoring is as simple, and can be done either via a very intuitive webinterface for free or if you have a catastrophic harddrive failure they also offer to burn and send DVD’s or alternatively an external USB harddrive for a some reasonable fee.

sounds simple, is simple and very intuitive… unfortunately, however there also some downsides:

1. currently there is no user control of what gets backed up – on the first run backblaze backs up all your data plus all connected external disks at the time of installing backblaze, with some exceptions.
2. depending on your data volume you need unlimited bandwidth – which is rather expensive in some countries;

we had some email correspondence with their support team which was very responsive & helpful… at least during the private beta phase. equally impressive, they were very honest about the limitations they had to implement in order to make backblaze as simple to use as possible – thus at the time they had no plans yet for “advanced users” (myself… ;0) featurese such as selective backups.

update: macworld has a detailed comparison of online backup services (including backblaze) here.