Backup Your Data Free With Mozy

Posted by Matt Singley on May 10, 2009 under Business, Productivity | 2 Comments to Read

Note: I originally published this in November 2008 but have had several people ask me about backup plans since then, so it’s worth a reprint.

Have you ever had a computer crash? Hard drive failure, BSOD, an unfortunate meeting of Diet Coke and your hardware? I have. It’s painful. Trying to restore data feels like something that the U.N. should condemn as universally cruel and unusual. System failure and data recovery is such a horrible thing to go through, it used to be a nice source of revenue for my former tech company…people would hire us and pay a lot of money to see if we could recover their financials, their emails, their files and their pictures. If you have ever gone though this, you know what I’m talking about.

I recently started using a company that I wish existed back when I was spending entirely too much time with data recovery. Mozy is an online service that allows users to backup data from their computer to an online storage container. Best of all? Its basic service is FREE. The setup is amazingly simple; just sign up with your email address (no credit card required…nice!), download the app for your PC or Mac, and start your backup. It’s secure as heck (128-bit encryption for transfer, 448-bit Blowfish key for encryption on their server) and very easy to use. Some of the features of Moxy Home that are so appealing:

• Backs up Outlook automatically. I love this, I cannot lose my email or contacts. This is a non-negotiable and is critical to me.
• 2GB of space! If you take all of your downloaded music out of the picture, 2GB is enough for most users to back up most of their critical files. Of course if you want to back up music as well, you can purchase an account with more space than you’ll ever use for just $4.95/month. That’s not bad.
• Click and go. The interface is so easy, the first time you run it Mozy will suggest folders that it thinks you should back up. I was thinking that I would need to go through all of my folders and choose, but it took a potential hour long process and turned it into a 30 second decision. I appreciate that!
• Automatic backups. Although I won’t use this too much on my laptop because it’s off and on constantly, I will for my home computer.
• Incremental backups. This means that after the initial full backup it will only backup files that have been changed since you last ran it. This makes backup time almost not even noticeable. This is very important to me.
• Options. A lot of options. If you want to just let Mozy set everything up for you, it’s not a problem. It’s ready to go out of the box, and everything works well. If you are like me, you want to pop the hood and tinker a little bit. The options control panel let’s me satisfy my inner geek by giving me enough choices to make me smile.
• If you are on Twitter like I am, you can follow the official company account here. I love it when companies are on Twitter.

I think the Mozy Home service will work for most people, but if you are a power user or company, they offer two other tiers of service with things like SQL and Exchange backup, unlimited storage space and sub-administration/department controls.

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