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.
