Mozy: Free automatic remote backup

Filed under: Security, Utilities, Windows

Mozy: Free automatic remote backup

by Jordan Running Jul 28th 2006

Mozy is an remote backup service for Windows whose main differentiating factor is that it's free. Sort of. I'll get to that in a moment. Like most online backup systems, you install some software and then schedule it to send your precious files to a server somewhere else every week, night, whatever. Mozy emphasizes security, transmitting your files over 128-bit encrypted SSL and then storing them with 448-bit Blowfish encryption on Mozy's server. For free you get 2GB of storage space, which is plenty for many people's most important documents. If you drop $4.95 per month, you get bumped up to 30GB. So, what's the catch? Mozy sends you a newsletter each month filled with ads. Mozy says they "only work with advertising sponsors we think offer worthwhile, useful products and services" and your email address is never shared. This business model seems to rely on the fact that most people can't figure out how to filter its newsletters into the trash, but hey, if it's working for them, more power to them.

Tags: backup, free, mozy, online, remote

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

scottfrye said 5:58PM on 7-28-2006

Just to let you guys know the link "Read" has an error in it. I suppose to go "https://mozy.com/" but it has an "http://" in front of it. The mozy link at the top of the article is fine.

Mimoun Raddahi said 6:34PM on 7-28-2006

If you add the referrer code: KYKXTK when you sign up on the last page you get 256MB extra for free.

Peter said 7:08PM on 7-28-2006

One thing to know about Mozy is that if it detects that it already has a copy of a file on their server it doesn't transfer it. So for more "generic" files, like the iTunes installer or some popular video clip, they just keep one copy and everyone "shares" it. If you needed to restore that file you would be getting the generic version which they claim is the same as the one you would have uploaded if they had allowed you to upload it. They claim it's a benefit because you don't have to waste time and space uploading files they already have.

There seems to be no way to bypass this "feature" and I'm not sure how they determine that a file is a duplicate and isn't necessary to upload. One would presume it's by hash, but they don't say.

If I'm in a recovery situation, I want to be 100% certain that I'm getting back everything I had, EXACTLY the way it was on my machine. I know the chance of there being a difference is absurdly small, but in a recovery situation I really don't care.

Keith Kamisugi said 7:16PM on 7-28-2006

I subscribed to Mozy's 30GB service about two months and found that it does a good job with small files, but it's unable to handle >1GB files. The connection always times out. I haven't yet contacted their customer service about the issue, so for now am only backing up part of my files with the service; the rest of my backup is done with an external drive.

Dan Warne said 9:29PM on 7-28-2006

Have you read the Mozy blog though? I don't know whether to take the service seriously. One of the blog entries discusses the robustness of 448bit encryption, but then digresses into how they wrap their hard drives in tin foil to stop telekinetic breaches, and the next blog entry talks about fragmented hard drives, and they show a drive that has been physically cut into pieces with a buzzsaw and then advise on the best type of glue to put it back together.

I mean, it IS very funny, but they don't put a winkey smiley at the end of it or anything. I don't know that I would trust my precious backed up data to these clowns!

absik said 7:42AM on 7-29-2006

Try www.carbonite.com

It has unlimited storage, practically speaking

P Ringlebottom said 11:32AM on 7-31-2006

I have been using Mozy for a couple of months now and I've been really happy with it. I'm just backing up some photos so I'm well under the 2GB limit for a free account.

Absik, you should probably point out that carbonite doesn't have a free option (it's $50-80 or something like that). I tried their 15-day trial but it was too confusing so I decided not to use it.

Dan, I'm pretty sure that they are joking on their blog about gluing a hard drive back together... it's nice to find a company that knows that they don't always have to be serious...

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