Joel Hirschhorn

Mozy Is A Terrific Product



Posted: Monday, March 30, 2009

by Joel Hirschhorn
http://www.delusionaldemocracy.com

Forget the wisdom that if something seems too good to be true it isn't. Also forget there is no free lunch advice. For several years I have used the Mozy computer backup system. It has cost absolutely nothing and works reliably. Like so many others I had the terrible experience of losing a hard drive through no fault of my own. Anger and frustration dealing with lost files drove me to look for foolproof ways to regularly backup everything on my computer. Luckily, I discovered Mozy.

Mozy stores what you choose to backup in their servers. The service works through the Internet. Once you are signed up and have a password you can download your stored files from anyplace with web access. I have had the occasion when another computer stopped working effectively to use my Mozy access to download everything I had on a new laptop. Considering house fires, thefts and natural disasters, using an online, offsite backup service makes a lot of sense. Moreover, statistics show that one in every ten hard drives fail each year.

To be clear, the free Mozy home service gives you to 2 GB of storage space. I have never exceeded this, but for a rather low price of $4.95 a month, and less if you pay for one year (one month free) or two years (three months free) in advance, you can get unlimited storage space. This is really a low price for security and peace of mind. These costs are for the home, personal, non-commercial user. Business users pay more. Note that Mozy, like other similar systems, backs up files, photos, videos, and documents, but not programs. It can also backup what you have on an external hard drive.

Virtually everyplace that has examined and reviewed computer backup and storage services have given Mozy high ratings. For free, it is a total no-brainer. Not to avail yourself of the free Mozy service is plain stupidity. My strong recommendation is to at least start with the free service and, if you really need more storage capacity, move up to the low price unlimited capacity service.

For those with some healthy skepticism or paranoia, computer experts have raved about the many security features of the Mozy system, mainly because of fancy encryption features. Mozy uses multiple levels of security and redundancy to ensure that files are backed up and secure on their servers. For the more technically advanced: Mozy uses 128-bit SSL encryption when data is transferred on the web to ensure it isn't intercepted and while your files are in storage. In other words, no one at Mozy can read your files. Mozy also uses a 448-bit Blowfish encryption to prevent someone from getting your data if the Mozy servers were to be breached somehow.

Mozy works with both Microsoft PC and Apple Mac systems. If you run into a problem you can contact the company through email or phone, and my experience and that of others reported on websites is that technical assistance is provided very nicely.

You can set it up to backup on a schedule that fits your needs and whenever you want you can quickly backup your system in addition to the scheduled times. I have found the backups to work very quickly, without slowing down my computer work and web access. Apparently the system knows when files have been changed or new ones created, which minimized operation times. And you can also control the speed of the uploading.

Though initially Mozy was a most creative small company that was started in 2005 in Utah , it was acquired in 2007 by EMC, a large Fortune 500 corporation that provides industrial size storage services to other large corporations. This should provide even more comfort, because if the technology and services offered by Mozy and EMC are good enough to store large amounts of sensitive business data, then home users should feel fully protected for the long term.

Take my advice, mosey over to Mozy.com and let the system work automatically to keep what you cherish safe, secure and retrievable. You will join more than 900,000 home users.

Joel S. Hirschhorn has succeeded as: a full professor, University of Wisconsin, Madison; a senior staffer, U.S. Congress (Office of Technology Assessment); head of an environmental consulting company; Director of Environment, Energy and Natural Resources, National Governors Association; now an author and consultant. Recent books are: Sprawl Kills - How Blandburbs Steal Your Time, Health and Money, and Delusional Democracy - Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government. He has published hundreds of articles in newspapers, magazines, journals and on many web magazine sites. He has given hundreds of talks at a wide range of conferences worldwide. He focuses on American culture, politics and government, and health issues.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by John Hudson from United States 2 years 330 days ago.
Have you done a restore and done a file compare.. I hear lots of people are having issues with restore. I get - network not detected - no backup in 69 days!
» left by Anonymous 2 years 330 days ago.
Mozy works perfectly for me; it does an automatic backup every day; if you do not see this being done by checking the icon you need to check how you have set it up.
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