Data back up
After living for years with a less-than-robust backup solution (occasional, manual hard drive copies), I finally took the plunge and purchased a real data backup solution. I’ve been shopping around for quite awhile looking for the best solution, and I think I’ve found it.
Mozy is a relatively new player in the data backup space and has been making some big headlines. Notably, they scored a major enterprise contract from non other than GE. For the home user, they offer a pretty good deal: unlimited backup for $5/month (or less if you pay for a full year upfront). Included is a backup client that runs in the background and continually keeps the data on their servers in sync with the data on your computer. It’s all encrypted and redundant on their end, so it’s much safer than the external HDD most of us use to back up. (You are backing up your data, right? Right??)
I ran a quick cost comparison: for ~$50/yr I get automatic, painless, off site, unlimited data backup through Mozy. This is in line with my current set up, that requires a fatty hard drive (assuming a replacement rate of ~3 years) and is not automatic or off site.
Back in my early days of computing, I suffered through a catastrophic hard drive failure (my own fault) and would rather not deal with that pain again. If you’re in the market for a new data backup scheme, take a look at Mozy.
Filed under technology : Comments (12) : Sep 16th, 2007 by tadfad
September 17th, 2007 at 4:50 am
I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile too. Are you happy with Mozy’s mass download solution in the event of a hard drive failure?
September 17th, 2007 at 6:36 am
Mozy offers a few restore options. You can do it online, though it would take awhile at residential download speeds. If you have lots of data, Mozy will burn DVDs and overnight them to you so you can load it on your system.
September 17th, 2007 at 9:51 am
So… I could use this to backup my mini, macbook, and the family computer at home (if I get the unlimited)… right?
September 17th, 2007 at 9:53 am
just kidding! 5 bucks per computer. I guess I should have figured.
September 17th, 2007 at 11:06 am
If you wanted to scam the system, you could locally back up all your machines to one computer, then back that one up. . . though it would not be nearly as painless or automatic as the out-of-the-box Mozy solution.
September 17th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
how does Mobi compare to the free backup feature in the pending apple release of Leopard? A simple external HD turns your mac into a time machine!
September 17th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Time Machine meets the easy and automatic criteria, but fails the off-site test. Also, I don’t want to have to deal with HDDs failing or overheating in my external case. So I think Mozy is still a good deal.
September 18th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
I’m having some major ConnectionError1 issues - have you had those at all tad?
September 19th, 2007 at 6:38 am
I wanna hear the story about your initial HDD failure… and why it was your fault
September 19th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
HDD failure story: Back in my early days of computer hacking, I was swapping a hard drive out of a really old system. This system happened to have an AT power supply with symmetrical plugs. Not being very careful, I plugged in the power cable to the HDD upside-down, sending 12V up the 5V line. I discovered my error when smoke started to radiate from the HDD chipset.
Had I really needed to recover the data, chances are that the platters were undamaged, but I was too cheap to go through the hassle. Fortunately the drive was still covered under warranty and Maxtor didn’t seem to mind the clearly scorched chips.
Long story short: always keep a backup!
September 24th, 2007 at 4:33 am
Mozy just got acquired –>
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/23/breaking-online-backup-startup-mozy-acquired-by-emc-for-76-million/
October 29th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
[...] And finally, to answer Dillon’s comment, I have indeed enabled my flux capacitor and pushed the iMac up past 88 mph so I can use Time Machine, the new backup software. I hate the interface, but it works as promised. I’m now patiently waiting for a hack to ditch the lame starfield theme. (And yes, I’m still using Mozy) [...]