MacMozy

I have written before about Mozy, an online backup service for Windows XP. I use this service daily and love it. Now Mozy has a new client for Macintosh users.

Mozy is an automated backup service that runs in the background. If your computer is powered up, connected to the Internet, and is not being used by a human at the moment, Mozy will automatically make backups for you.  It will back up whatever files and folders you have previously specified. The first backup will take quite some time as all the files have to be copied to Mozy's servers. Subsequent backups are very quick because the backup process only needs to copy the parts of files that have changed since the last backup.

Of course, you can restore a file or groups of files at any time. In fact, Mozy will even restore a file as it existed up to 30 days ago. That is, if you accidentally saved bad data in a file yesterday, you can have Mozy restore the version from the day before yesterday.

Mozy will provide up to two gigabytes of storage space free of charge, and the company now offers UNLIMITED backup space for only $4.95 a month. That's right: unlimited storage space for less than five bucks a month. That's much, much cheaper than the other companies that offer online backup services.

You can read my earlier articles about Mozy for Windows users here and here.

Mozy recently introduced a Macintosh client. It is still in beta, but I installed it this week, and it has worked perfectly for a couple of days now. As with any beta software, there may be some bugs. I haven't found any yet, but the possibility certainly exists.

I downloaded the Macintosh client for Mozy, installed it, selected the folders to be backed up, and then walked away. When I returned to my MacBook some time later, I found that all the files were backed up. As I use the computer, incremental backups are now made automatically. Should I ever need to restore any files or folders, I can log onto the web site and fill out the restore request, and the files will be emailed to me.

All in all, this is a great service. I already pay Mozy for unlimited backup file space on my Windows systems. I simply added the Macintosh as one more system to be backed up. I did not have to create a new account or pay any more money.

The new Macintosh client does not yet seem to be mentioned on the publicly-accessible sections of the Mozy web site. However, if you create a free user account, you will be able to log in and then find more information about the beta Macintosh client. You can also download the required software from the web site. For details, log onto the web site; click on SUPPORT and then on FREQUENTLY-ASKED QUESTIONS.

Everyone should keep off-site backup copies of important data files. Mozy makes it easy to do so. To sign up for the free 2 gigabytes of storage or for the $4.95/month unlimited storage option, go to  http://mozy.com.

Comments

[Dick Allen]

How does this compare to using a .Mac account at $99 per year? I don't know how much storage you get on a .Mac account.

[Art Umland]

The basic .Mac account is for 1 GB of storage. While the Apple Inc price is $99.95 for a year, an account is available at lesser cost through special offers and Apple vendors, locally $69.99.

For $49.95 add another 2 GB, and for $99.95 4 GB.

You can readily find less expensive online storage. But, many other services are offered with your .Mac account including free incremental backup software. Also, Apple has made a number special offers at times to .Mac members only that help offset the initial cost.

First, make sure that you have a high speed connection available, a telephone modem is not sufficient. If you want some of the other .Mac services, go for it, if you only need online storage seek other less expensive options. And keep in mind if you are not a "Power User" with your Mac computer, the integration of Mac OS X with the .Mac makes life simple for many users!

[wizardluffy]

Mozy is a great idea. Downloading was easy. Mozy selected files it thought I wanted backed up. But didn't select my gen software (PAF) which is all I wanted backed up. Thinking I'd just backup everything, I was told my highspeed backup should take about 12 hours. 12 hours!!! They didn't say whether my comp would be tied up that long or not. Support was very good. But they (and the whole comp industry) need to keep it simple for those of us who are comp illiterate.

[Dick Eastman]

---> They didn't say whether my comp would be tied up that long or not.

It would not be tied up. You can continue to use your computer while backups are being made. The backups might slow down a bit, requiring perhaps 13 hours instead of 12, but otherwise everything will work fine.

The time required is a function of the uplink speed of your Internet connection. The faster your Internet connection, the faster the backups run and the fewer number of hours required. Typically, it takes many hours for the first (full) backup. After that, each new (incremental) backup only takes a very few minutes to transfer only the files that have changed.

I save several gigabytes of data on Mozy. My first backup required more than 24 hours, although I kept using the computer simultaneously for other things. All the backups since then are usually completed in 2 or 3 minutes.

- Dick Eastman

[Allen Watson]

I went to mozy.com to download Macmozy, only to discover that the site still says "Coming soon." Apparently, your article was premature.

[Dick Eastman]

Funny, I've been using MacMozy for two weeks. I simply went to the Mozy web site, downloaded it, installed it and started using it.

- Dick Eastman

[William A. McKibben]

I've had Mozy for some years and it appears to be excellent, but it doesn't seem to backup the two areas I'm very concerned with, Quicken and Family Tree Maker (which I pay to have backed up by Quicken) Except pictures it backs up most evrything else with 700MB.

[John Reed]

I have Mozy and have uploaded about 75 GB of files. It took about a week, with starts and stops along the way, but Mozy remembers the files it has already backed up, so each time you restart the process you just add to what you have already backed up.

The problem is: "this is the easy part."

Picture someone has stolen your computer (or your house burned down), you buy a new computer and now you want to restore all 75 GB of your data files. You have two choices: create many zip files and restore each to your computer (big job - lots of "baby sitting") or order many DVD's with your data (expensive).

It is too bad Mozy doesn't provide an operation for restoring similar to uploading: (1) select all the files, (2) directly download them to the original directory structure (without any zip files involved). This would take a lot of time (again likely stops and starts), but it would be more fool proof with less "baby sitting" required.

I just tried to do step (1) - "Select all the files" and got the following message:

"Website Error
Uh-oh, it looks like something bad happened with the Mozy website. The error has been logged. Please contact support@mozy.com if this keeps happening."

This is scary.

The devil is always in the details!!!

[L.E.]

Looks like Mozy has hit the big time:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/23/tiny-startup-mozy-nails-multi-million-dollar-ge-storage-contract/

They still don't officially offer a Mac client though - the site says 'coming soon'.

[Dick Eastman]

Wow! That is big time! Thanks for posting that.

As to the comment of "They still don't officially offer a Mac client though - the site says 'coming soon,'" all I can say is that I have been using the Macintosh client for Mozy for several weeks and it appears to be working well. I say "appears" as I have only made backups; I haven't yet had a need to restore anything. Gee, I hope that works! (smile)

Mozy has restored files perfectly on my Windows systems but I have had no reason to restore files on the Macintosh system.

- Dick Eastman

[L.E.]

The Mac Mozy beta is available here:

https://mozy.com/mozy/macmozy

[Gary]

I just downloaded Mozy a week ago.(got many error messages which I found confusing!) I found the process a bit perplexing, but do not claim great technical prowess. I had a question, emailed Mozy support and got back a helpful & courteous email. However, apparently my Family Tree Maker files did not back-up. Or at least I don't SEE them on the back-up list of files (which by the way, I found extremely confusing to look at). I hope I'll get the hang of it and it will work well for me. I primarily subscribed to the service for back-up of my photos and Family Tree Maker. Photos appear to be there,but am still confused about the FTM. I might have been better off just ot remember to back-up to my external hard drive as I had been doing. Hope I will be proved wrong.