I wrote about setting up redundant e-mail services a few months ago. Since then, FastMail1 has had some ups and downs with another rough patch and then rolling out their own replicated systems to help avoid future problems.
I’m still with FastMail. The combination of laziness on my part (I’m really quite happy with the features and set-up I have), the steps FastMail has taken to keep their service available in the event of future issues and the fact I’ve paid the account in advance for the next few years has kept me using their service as my primary mail provider.
However, my recent hard drive disaster has me thinking that backups are good, so I’ve also signed up for an account at TuffMail2 and have started sending copies of my mail there as well. A couple bucks a month for 
e-mail insurance 
if you will.
Everything on the TuffMail side has been a good experience so far. A support ticket I opened was handled quickly and capably, and they went above and beyond to help me migrate my existing mail over to my TuffMail account. The spam filtering seems to be doing a pretty good job too.
Since I’m unwilling to host my own e-mail, having it in two places seems like a good idea.
E-mail was the only service where I relied exclusively on the provider to do backups3, and now I’ve got a backup there as well. With my calendaring I’ve got local copies of the iCalendars from Google Calendar on two machines and with contacts I’ve got local copies on two machines plus Plaxo as well. Backups are good.
- I’m recommending FastMail again, so that link has a referral ID in it for me to get some small credit if you sign up. [back]
- Which unfortunately doesn’t have a migration tool like FastMail does, but does have fast and friendly support staff that were willing to do it for me. [back]
- Though I’ve got local copies of the mail on 2 machines. [back]
Popularity: 3% [?]
alice adds this Comment:
Well it was smart to back it up I am a old schooler and still use the mail archive for email lists.
December 8th, 2006 at 8:00 am
Mark adds this Comment:
I like to run email on one of my servers and then redirect everything to GMail. That way if GMail ever fails, I can simply redirect to another server and I get the storage and Spam protection of GMail but never lose my email address.
December 8th, 2006 at 8:14 am
febwa adds this Comment:
Why not use gmail with their domain hosting service. Simple to use (free) and very reliable?
December 8th, 2006 at 10:03 am
Alex adds this Comment:
I actually answered this in the comments of my previous post on this topic. There are 2 reasons:
1. Gmail doesn’t support IMAP.
2. I don’t trust a free service to be as reliable as a paid service (go read the horror storie of folks who have lost all their Gmail, can’t get in touch with Google support, etc.).
December 8th, 2006 at 10:54 am
Around the web | alexking.org adds this Pingback:
[…] SaaS: Outsourcing Your Backup, or Not? - I try to keep multiple local copies and at least one remote copy of anything I care about. Even my e-mail. […]
June 17th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
PZuni adds this Comment:
Tuffmail is awesome. I cant say enough for John and the people that run the service. Top notch.
I have been using the service for over 5 years (paid account, many domains) without a single problem.
Did you know you can forward the first 140+ characters of a email to a cell phone as a SMS using tuffmail?
June 1st, 2008 at 6:19 pm