2009 February | Mozy Online Backup

“We use Mozy as a disaster recovery solution because it makes sense to have our critical information stored offsite and far away from the office,” said Derrick Brown, Senior Systems Administrator for United Way of The National Capital Area. “Compared to the solution we used previously, MozyPro saves us 75 percent on our backup costs while increasing our administrative control.”

Elyse’s Genealogy Blog

That is why I signed up for Mozy. Mozy is a free backup service that downloads onto your computer, and then backups the files of your choosing onto an online server. I currently use the free version, which provides 2GB of space (but there are paid versions that offer a lot more space). Since I only backup my genealogy related files (and a select few other files that are important to me), I don’t go over the 2GB of space. I have set my Mozy to backup my files whenever my computer is idle for 30 minutes. Having my files backup on a regular basis help give me peace of mind.

Free Wow Gold: How much are you willing to lose?

Having lost data myself, I also have another layer in my backup strategy: automated, file-based backups using Mozy. I’ve raved about Mozy before, and will continue to do so. I use this for all of my computers (and my wife’s, and my kids, and my dad’s…etc.)

What Software Do You Use For What?

Mozy is one of the few things for which I actually don’t mind paying. $5 a month gets me a complete backup solution that is fully automated. I don’t have to think about it and I know I have a secure offsite storage. I am also currently testing backblaze which is a similar service at the same price.

Ronald R. Martinsen’s Photography Blog

The judge is still out since I am still backing up and haven’t lived with the service long-term, but my initial impressions are positive. However, I do have a few gripes:

1. Backup isn’t as automatic as I’d like – if Windows Update reboots the machine, you have to log in before the backup will resume – this has cost me a couple days of backup time.
2. Restarts are slow and it doesn’t seem to be working hard enough to get the data online as quickly as I think it could.
3. It is slow to give you a view of what you have uploaded, but once it loads it works fine.
4. It doesn’t support removable drives.

I’m seeing upload speeds of about 1 mbps with no negative impact on my system or Internet access. I frequently watch movies on the Xbox 360 using Netflix streaming video (sometimes in HD) and Mozy doesn’t seem to be impacting that performance (of course that is downstream and Mozy is upstream, but still – I was pleased about that).

Restore is very easy and fast, so overall I’m pretty happy with what I am seeing from Mozy. They offer 2GB Totally Free so there’s nothing to lose for trying it out.

Best Backup Online Solution Windows 7 & Windows Vista SP2

It’s been an interesting day. I’ve had a job related assignment to review online backup services including the free backup online and online data backup services that you’re starting to see advertised now more and more heavily.

We tested three well known online backup service products on Windows 7 and Windows Vista SP2. The results were not pretty. I found I could not recommend any of them. In fact, they were so new and so unfinished, that I am not allowed to even name them or discuss them here.

I posted as much on a message board (forum) I hang out on and got a response in just a few minutes that I should try Mozy. Good call.

Life on the Road

Mozy was suggested by someone on another group, so I checked it out. It has the same sort of automated backup and ”run-in-the-background” functionality as Carbonite, but I can select anything to be included in the backup set.

They have a number of plans to choose from, apparently “something for everyone”: a business plan, an unlimited home plan (only $4.95/month), and a Free Plan.

Computer Nightmare

Back in November of 2008, we announced a video contest asking for people to show us their worst computer nightmares. Maybe it was the awesome prizes (iPods, video cameras, and a trip to Hawaii), or just people’s innate desire to tell an awesome computer horror story. Either way, we received 52 awesome videos detailing everything from a dog with an overactive bladder to a murderous Mac.

Mozy backups and external hard drives

I use Mozy for my offline backups and I am very pleased with the service. I moved to Mozy because my previous service did not support external hard drives.

I did run into a situation with my Mozy backups that should have been immediately obvious, but I did not catch it for a while.

The first backup you do with an offline service takes a good while. I backup about 30G which is certainly not an exorbitant amount, and the first backup took 3 – 4 days elapsed time with the computer not running 24/7.

Each day the backups run anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour. However, ever now and again the backups seemed to start over, and take the entire 3 – 4 days again. It happened again this week so I finally stopped to figure it out.

Every now and again I would start the computer without the external hard drive – which I do from time to time if all that I am going to do is use the Internet. The problem happened when the automatic backups started during the time the external hard drive was off. Mozy did the little bit of backups from drive C: and then assumed 29G was deleted, and deleted it from my backups.

The next backup had to start over. Once I figured it out, it was easy enough to control, but it took me a couple minutes of thinking to figure out what was happening.

A quick email to Mozy support (which is very responsive) confirmed my diagnosis.

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Computer crapped out

my computer bit the dust in the wee hours of saturday morning…which kinda messed up my mojo on catching on my blog and some school work, but I’ve rounded up a spare in the meantime to get me through. i haven’t had much of a chance to fool with it yet, but i’m not too worried about it because this is my opportunity to plug mozy–i use the free home version of Mozy (mozy.com) to back up files i don’t want to lose; it’s beautiful, just set it and forget it! if you have more to back up than the freebie will allow, the other versions are reasonably priced too. check it out!