Zoogmo offers P2P file backup solution, no seriously

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Windows, P2P, Beta

Zoogmo offers P2P file backup solution, no seriously

by Brad Linder Jan 30th 2008

There are hundreds of ways to backup your important data. You can schedule automatic backups to a DVD-RW, spare hard drive, or use an offsite backup solution to save your data on a remote server in case anything ever happens to your PC. But while offsite services like Carbonite and Mozy provide a secure option for backing up your files online, neither is free (while Mozy offers a free service, account holders can only backup 2GB for free).

Zoogmo offers a novel approach to offsite backup. Instead of saving your files to a central server, this Windows application lets users create peer to peer networks to store files. So if you've got three or four friends with broadband connections and a few spare GB of disk space all you have to do is ask them to download and install Zoogmo and add you as a partner. When you initiate a backup, Zoogmo will check to see which of your partners are online and begin saving your files on their computers.

All your data will be encrypted so that nobody can access your files without your login information. So if you want to save your tax or medical documents offsite, there's little to no risk of your friends reading through them.

Zoogmo is currently in public beta, which means it's free for anyone to use. While in beta there's a file size limit of 50MB, so don't expect to backup your ripped DVD collection using Zoogmo.

Tags: backup, p2p, storage, zoogmo

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Peter said 1:37PM on 1-30-2008

Zoogmo is an interesting idea but it currently has some serious drawbacks (at least for me).
There is no block level transfer, so you have to move the whole file every time any part of it changes. There is no versioning at all. And there is no provision for deleting old files.
Also, if you put a sniffer on the line you can see A LOT of communication with the Zoogmo servers. Hard to understand what that could be.

Mozy is a much more robust solution. (A small correction, free accounts get 2 Gigs of space.)

Aaron said 3:26PM on 1-30-2008

CrashPlan (http://www.crashplan.com) already does this as one of its features (or it can back-up ala Mozy style to a centralized server). It also works on Win, Mac, and Linux.

Vahid said 5:50PM on 1-30-2008

Have you guys looked at http://www.docsyncer.com/ ? Though it is limited to "work" documents (such as .doc, .ppt, .pdf and such) it does the job quite nicely to me and in a very transparent manner: It just sits there looking for domcuments that are being changed and uploads them. Security issues? probably plenty, but finding my files on their server has saved my life at least once so far. It's still in Beta, but works really well for my needs.

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters