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Mozy Review: Is Mozy Online Backup Worth it? My Experience…

Update:: Maybe Mozy isn’t so great after all…

Mozy Online BackupA little while back I signed up for Mozy - it’s an online backup service for your computer. My girlfriend had her laptop stolen earlier this year, which made me want to reevaluate my backup plan. After my hard drive spontaneously crashed last year I setup an external USB hard drive that I used in conjunction with Microsoft Synctoy, but that setup wouldn’t do me any good if the office burned down or the drive was stolen along with my computer.

I’ve seen readers on Digg and Lifehacker talk about custom remote backup setups, but I really didn’t want to go through the trouble of setting up a homegrown backup system. I wanted something easy, reliable, and automatic.

After reading about a few options, I came across an article on Techcrunch that mentioned Mozy securing a contract with GE. I figured if a company like GE trusts Mozy, I could too. I didn’t want to get setup with a company that is less known or could go out of business next week. And like last week’s debacle with Streamload demonstrates - these things do happen with smaller or relatively unknown startups.

So, on to my review of Mozy:

The nice thing about Mozy is that they offer a free subscription for anything less than 2GB of storage, so you can try them out and not have to pay anything for it. I knew right away that I would need to backup more than that so I went with the $5/mo. unlimited plan right from the start (I had about 30GB that I needed to backup - lots of photos). Practically speaking, unlimited is actually limited by your connection and the time it takes to complete - so yes, it’s unlimited, but the practical limit really depends on your internet connection’s upload speed.

Downloading an installing the program was pretty quick - the application is about 6MB.

Once you install it you get to set your encryption method (you can even choose your own). Then you “populate backup sets” - basically select everything you want backed up.

Mozy backup sets

Then Mozy runs a test to determine your upload speed.

Mozy speed test

After which you select your preference for how fast Mozy should work. This selection determines the balance between how fast the backups run and how much bandwidth this will take up from your other tasks.

Mozy upload speed settings

I actually had to go back and change this setting since the recommended 3/4 speed slowed down my network quite a bit (then again I’m on DSL, which has a relatively slow upload speed).

I reset this to about 1/4 to get my surfing back to normal and prevent the backups from impacting my workflow. As a result, it’s taking a rather long time to backup my 30 GB of files. This is probably due to the fact that I have my computer go into automatic standby after about 20 minutes of inactivity. If you have problems with this, you can either keep your computer running overnight and make sure it doesn’t go into standby or you can test higher upload speeds to make sure the process goes by quicker. Alternatively you can be more selective about the amount of data you actually need to have backed up (initially I just chose a ton of folders, some of which aren’t all that important).

After you set your preferences, the setup completes and Mozy starts running in the background.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for an automatic low-maintenance way to keep your files backed up remotely, Mozy is great option. You might have to play around with the settings initially to make sure your backup speed is sufficient without slowing down your computer. If you have a slow upload (like my DSL connection) and have less than 15-20GB to backup, Mozy will work just fine if you give it enough time to backup (at least a few weeks, maybe a month plus). If you have a faster connection and less than 50GB to backup, it should work just as well.

Mozy offers a completely free option for backing up to 2GB of data and a $5/month plan for unlimited backups. In my opinion - as someone who’s experienced hard drive failure - $5 per month for peace of mind is nothing compared with the giant pain of having to deal with lost files, photos, and important documents.

P.S. Mozy is also available for Macs as of this April.

backupReview said,

October 14, 2007 @ 11:09 am

You cannot comment on a product without comparisons. Mozy is a pretty good service, however, there are some much better online backup services / software. Mozy is recently acquired by EMC, so the cheap service probably will go away as EMC never sells cheap stuff. For other online backup service review, please visit:
http://backupreview.googlepages.com/default.html

Robert said,

October 24, 2007 @ 2:16 am

Mozy’s online backup service is not without its problems - see defensive computing analyst Michael Horowitz’s article on Cnet, or this backup software review which explains why some of Mozy’s small print could result in you losing your data!

sarah said,

April 23, 2008 @ 1:54 pm

On the surface, Mozy seems great. Simple, minimal configuration, offsite backup with unlimited storage (and no bandwidth charges) for a low price. That it where the greatness ends. It was only after using three months of service that I realized its pitfalls. If you do any of the following, Mozy thinks you are adding another computer to your account, makes you pay double, and begin your backup from scratch again:
- uninstall the client
- reinstall the client
- reinstall your OS
- get a new computer and transfer your old computers data to it
- have a hardware failure
- have a software problem

It takes FOREVER to upload. I ran my computer 24hrs a day for two months (over a 1T) and had only backed up 60GB of my 180GB of data. The mac client has some issues and even though my client said I had uploaded over 100GB, Mozy.com only had 60GB. I had to uninstall and reinstall the client because the auto update feature wasn’t working and it restarted my backup from scratch! 2 months of uploads gone! I then got a new computer, and used USB to transfer all of my data from my old computer to the new. Mozy claims that when you get a new computer you have to use Mozy to transfer your data to it. Unfortunately, this means that both your old and new computer are out of commission for weeks on end, instead of using USB which for me only takes 1 hour. They claim that this is the way their service is designed to work and they have no plans to change. So, in other words, if you never buy another computer, never have a harddrive failure, a software problem, never want to reinstall your OS, and never actually need your data to be backed up, then Mozy is great. But then again, isn’t that the point of Mozy?

Markus said,

April 23, 2008 @ 2:13 pm

Thanks for your feedback, Sarah. My experience has been very similar with them.

Hosian Balderez said,

May 6, 2008 @ 10:27 am

Why not try literally any other online backup product before writing this review?
Mozy is slow (resource heave - check your resource monitor when it is running) and slows down other active software. Mozy has a very low default retention to roll period (only thirty days and most techs will recommend between 365 days and seven years)
Mozy need to be continually reloaded after restore (if you want to stay on the free price plan) because the 2 gig limit is a total of transfer (both up and down) whereas most providers base this on storage only.
Go with just about anyone else (free or paid) for a trial and you will not go back to mozzy. I know this because i moved to mozy from a super provider because i incorrectly read the toc’s and then moved to another service when i saw waht mozy realy is. The before and after alternatives wiped mozy.
Just in case you think I have a vested interest I will list a selection (rathen than one) of superior options.

ibackup.com
http://www.backup.com
http://www.backupanytime.com
http://www.carbonite.com
perfectbackup.co.uk

Rusty said,

May 15, 2008 @ 1:48 am

I agree with the above posts. I tried Mozy for 2 weeks and it failed continuously. Firstly it couldn’t contact it’s own servers for a full day, then 2 weeks later backups started failing. I checked the mozy log file and it was complaining about hash fails and backend problems, in other words the problem was again at their end!

I am now actively seeking to get my money back from these guys. Backup is meant to be error free and reliable, and Mozy is far from either. I am writing this comment in the hope that someone like me who is evaluating Mozy steers well clear of it!

Rusty

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