Mozy Your Mac
Ever lost a document? Of course you have. Annoying, isn’t it? Well, the new online backup app Mozy can help.
Mozy has been stuck ‘inside dull grey boxes’ for years, but now, it has been ported to the Mac, and is available here as a brand new(ish) Beta.
So what is Mozy, I hear you ask. Well it’s an extremely simple backup app, that lets you backup whatever you want to the Mozy servers. Best of all, you get 2GB of storage free!
Mozy is very simpe app, as shown in the screen shot, allowing you to either back up a specific folder (as shown), or sets of data; such as your Address Book and mail. This is a very useful feature, as it allows you to select only the important things that will fit into your 2GB of free space.
Of course, if you like Mozy, you can upgrade to an unlimited account, which gives you unlimited storage for just $4.95 a month, which most would agree is extremely reasonable.
Another great feature of Mozy is the automation. You can select a time for it to update the backup, and you can specify if you want it to backup when the computer is idle.
There is also a time-machine-esque feature, as it keeps multiple copies (versions) of the files that are backed up. I’m sure this will be a lifesaver if you happen to delete a document by accident, or if that crucial Pages document with an essay for tomorrow gets corrupted overnight.
Security worries? 448-bit encryption on your files, and 128 bit SSL on the connection.
Recovery of those oh-so-precious data dumps is also a very simple process. Just log-in to the Mozy website, and you have the option to either download all the files, or a specific folder in a nice, handy DMG. Or if you have money to burn, you can even get Mozy to send you DVD(s) with your files for $65+ 50 cents per GB of data. Ouch.
So are there any cons? Well yes, it can use up a lot of bandwidth, and bandwidth throttling doesn’t yet seem to be included in the OS X Beta, but this may come with time. If your bandwidth is on the light side Mozy might not be the best solution for you, and you might want to try something more localized, like ax external hard drive or DVD backups.
All in all, Mozy is a very simple, easy to use, personal offsite backup solution. I can see from the chatter online that it is being adopted at a reasonable clip, and I haven’t heard of any data disaster stories. If you haven’t already I recommend you grab yourself a copy over at Mozy and give the free sampling a taste test today.
I downloaded Mozy for both my G4 iMac and my MacBook. I’ve had trouble getting it to work so far. On both it scans for backup and then stops, not allowing me to actually back anything up.
I tried running as admin (I normally don’t for security) and it acted like it was working on the MacBook, but still no love for the iMac. Even on the MacBook it says that no backups have taken place even though I watched it “send” about 85 mb worth of data. I see the files online but I wonder when it doesn’t even acknowledge they are there.
It looks and sounds like it could be a great product. I had already signed up for the unlimited backup for two machines. But either they need to fix the bugs or find out why I’m having issues or I’ll need to cancel the account. I hope they figure it out.
I didn’t put this in the review, but it sends files in batches. It does about 80mb at a time, uploads it, reviews the next 80mb etc. Nothing show up online until it has completed. Try it just selecting one folder (with few files) to see if it works. When i first started using it, i did think i was having problems until i left it when i went to school and it just worked.
Hope it works for you, as i think its a great app.
I use JungleDisk http://www.jungledisk.com from Amazon. There is a Mac/Windows client and it works pretty well for me. The rates are really reasonable.
For online backup news, information and articles, there is an excellent website:
http://www.BackupReview.info
This site lists more than 400 online backup companies and ranks the top 25 on a monthly basis.
Any one can add their company in the directory. Just click on the “Search” button found at the top.
PS: Check out Mozy’s ranking!
Cheers,
2GB sounds great, though I need a much faster internet connection. (Shakes head at 256kbps DSL)
I like Mozy. It does take a long time the first time, but the restore function is really good as well.
Plus you can grow your free space using stuff like this:
https://mozy.com/?ref=65ML9L
Have fun.
For the last weeks I’ve been trying to backup 422 mb. It never works.
After having uploaded a few percent, it stops and gives me an error message, MozyServerError2, that the Mozy network is busy.
So today Mozy ran into AppDelete. Goodbye Mozy.
[...] th other hand, I re-read the original article that made me strongly consider Mozy for my mac backups in the first place, noting that my files are [...]
i think mozy is fantastic… price wise, it definitely kicks some serious face compared with other offsite backups… (well… it does when you’re trying to upload 100+ GB)
So far I’ve noticed a couple of key problems with the service… They aren’t enough to make me cancel my unlimited account yet… but that’s only because mozy is still the most cost efficient for my means… as i continue to use it, if these problems appear to be large issues, I may just switch back to using my external drive (though I am running out of space… I was hoping to use mozy to free up space on my external drive so I could use it to house original files instead of backups)
THE CONS:::
Hard-drive support: I’m running a MacBook Pro with a Lacie 250GB/USB Hub external hard-drive. I like to use my external hard-drive for storing data I don’t need when I’m on the go (all of my music for instance… I have my ipod with me after-all) So the problem arises when I have my computer away from my external drive and mozy wants to backup my files…. they simply aren’t there! From what I can tell, mozy actually deletes my files off of their system in this case. Then, when i plug my drive back in, mozy needs to spend another 5 days reloading all of my music. Well that’s just no good, obviously… for the time being, i’ve turned off the automated preferences in mozy and I have been updating frequently using the icon in the menu bar (thus insuring my external drive is connected whenever mozy updates)… ultimately, its not the end of the world, but it defeats one of the reasons I initially liked mozy so much; the fact that it runs without you having to even be aware of it.
Full-system backups: ARE NOT POSSIBLE?!? well… that’s not entirely true. You can upload all of your system preferences and library information… in fact it seems like you can simple select your computers hardrive under “files and folders” in the configuration and it should upload everything… however, when I tried this, mozy froze and only uploaded 48mb… now I KNOW that I have more than that on my computer. Turns out that mozy has a disclaimer somewhere in the help section that says mozy was not designed for doing full system backups and that it should only really be used to store your important files that are hard to replace (music, movies, word-docs, etc.). So its actually not all-purpose, like I had hoped.
those are the main issues I’ve come across so far. Otherwise, it is a wonderful service. If you don’t have original files on an external hard-drive and if you aren’t looking to backup your entire computer, then definitely go for it. If you’re like me, you might want to still get the service, but you’ll be a little frustrated with the fact that you have to work your way around what seems to be easily fixable issues. I’m hoping that these issues will be dealt with eventually (more the hard-drive issue… the other one is just the mind-set of the service, which I doubt will ever change…)
[...] well worth a look, as you can retrieve your documents from any computer, a definite plus. Our Review | [...]
I have been using Mozy for about 6 months now. Some times the app will hang in the background, but the Mozy people seem to have fixed that with the latest release.
If you use Mozy, register using the link and we both get more free storage.
https://mozy.com/?code=69NG42
Cheers.
I’m a Mozy user and unfortunately it does not back up Windows partitions on MacBooks or MacBook Pros.
[...] a security standpoint, mozy also seemed very good. An article over at MacApper noted that files are encrypted with a 448-byte key and all transactions take place [...]