Backup files online for free using Mozy

The sales pitch, even though Mozy is free:

• Imagine losing all of the data files, pictures, emails, and all of the other critical files on your PC
• Think about how important that information is, then think about what you would pay to get those files back
• You insure your car, your health, and other things, and you pay for it
• You can actually backup your data, and “insure your data” for free!
• Don't pay for Mozy becuase the paid version isn't worth it

Why are they free?

• They assume that if you use it, you will eventually want to buy their paid service, which is only $50 per year to back up all of your data
• My experience with the $50 version
  • I’m not very happy with it so far
    • It really slows down your PC if you let it do the backup as fast as it can
      • Even with this setting, it will take an estimated 1-2 weeks to back up my most important 20 Gb
      • Backing up my 150 Gb drive might take 7-14 weeks, and slow up my PC the whole time
    • If you put it on the setting that doesn’t slow down your PC, the backup is estimated to take at least 20 times longer, and you’ll have a new PC by then ;)
    • You can change the balance from “Quicker backups” to “Faster Computer” while you are actively using your computer, but you have to remember to reset it when you leave
    • Its own balancing algorithm doesn’t appear to work, i.e. you would like it to go full throttle when you’re not using the machine, and stop when you are, but it still seems to slow your PC a lot
  • My conclusion - use the free version, don’t pay for it, and only back up your most important, most frequently changed 2 Gb of data

What to do:

• Go to Mozy.com, and create an account
  • They allow you to backup up to 2 Gb of data for free
  • You can schedule when the backups are done.
  • You can schedule which data is backed up
  • You can regulate the priority of the backups vs. your regular work
• There are some problems with it
  • If you have a firewall, like MacAfee, Norton, etc, you may have to modify it to get Mozy to work, and the errors aren’t necessarily crystal clear
• you may have to allow your firewall software to permit Mozy access
• errors refer to the Mozy folder when it means MozyHome
• errors refer to the MozyConf folder not MozyConfig
• it talks about ¾ speed, but doesn’t tell you exactly how to set it when you are setting Mozy up, i.e. which direction to put the arrow
  • however, once the backup has begun, you can change it from the status screen
• when you do Configure and Save, the screen actually disappears rather than confirming your changes
  • to get it back, right click on the Mozy icon in the lower right hand corner
    • it’s the ugly brown and orange one
• it may take over 24 hours to do the initial backup of your 2 Gb

Regardless, backups are a necessity, and this one is free!