Mozy Online Backup Review
Here at BlueCol Business Development Services we've been recently been discussing what what kind of backup media we
would recommend for our small businesses. With all of this talk about IT moving to the cloud, and an
already sound feeling with local backup media such as hard drives and tape, we've decided to start experimenting
with Mozy Online Backup Service.
The first step was to purchase Mozy Home. Now, Mozy offers both a home version and a business version. We weren't sure how committed we would be to the online backup process, or
if we'd prefer using it for our small business, so we've decided to purchase the home version for now.
The purchse price for Mozy Business is $3.95 + 0.50/GB per month for desktops and $6.95 + 0.50/GB per month for servers. If you are wondering how much a gigabyte is, or how many gigabytes
are on your hard drive, if you purchased your computer within the last two years, there is a good chance you have 200+ GB on your hard drive. So, let us assume then
that this service costs about $105.00 per month. This is not chump change for a small and growing desktop based business.
I signed up for the Home Version which cost $54.95 per year for unlimited backup space. I downloaded the installation and I've included some screenshots of the installation process.
Step 1: You create a username and password account when you purchase
MozyHome. You enter the Username and Password here.
Step 2: You select a method of encrypting your data. The 448-bit is
stronger than the 256-bit encryption so I selected teh Blowfish key.
Step 3: Now MozyHome will assess your computer and pre-select file types
and directories to create a base conguration for you files to be backed up.
Step 4: Once the configuration of your backup set is complete, you can click Next to see the results of the configuration.
Step 5: The results of yoru configuration should yield some very common
pre-selections including emails, My Document Items, browser settings, music and
movies. I wasn't very satisfied with some of the files pre-selected but you can
adjust these settings later.
Step 6: In this next step, Mozy will assess your upload speed to determine
whether or not your Internet connection can support an online backup. An online
backup will use a significant amount of bandwidth since files are constantly
being uploaded to their backup server. If you have a cable modem, or a DSL line,
you should be ok.
Step 7: In this step, MozyHome allows yout to select your preference to
quicker backups vs. a faster computer. If you are using your computer a lot you
would want to select Faster Computer. If you don't use your computer a lot you
would select Quicker Backups. MozyHome tries to estimate how long the backup
will take. Don't be alarmed by the time to backup, this is only the amount of
time required to do the first backup. Subsequent backups take less time since
the backup only uploads files that have changed between backups.
Step 8: As I mentioend in Step 5, I was a little skeptical as to how
effective MozyHome was at selecting files I needed to backup, I've decided to
configure my backup in Expert Mode.
Step 9: When the configuration scren loads, there are some options, but
for now I want to assess the file system being selected for backup.
Step 10: As you can see below, MozyHome does not select some files that
you might feel necessary to backup. For example, if you are running a web server
off of your computer, your file directory might be directly on the C:\ drive and
thus it may not be pre-selected. I would recommend reviewing all of the checked
items, their sub-directories, and files, to make sure Mozy got all of the files
you need backed up.
Step 11: You can start your backup, by right clicking the orange and grey
square Mozy icon in your task tray.
Step 12: You can view the status of your backup, by right clicking the
orange and grey square Mozy icon in your task tray.
Review: Overall, the MozyHome online backup has been working well. The only issue I had with MozyHome
was the inital backup. After doing the installation, MozyHome seemed to slow my machine down significantly as it attempted to
backup 40GB of data. However, once the initial backup is complete, MozyHome has backed up files periodically since then without any problems. Granted,
I have not done a Restore from a backup yet, so this review is incomplete. Nonetheless, I was always curious to see what the impact of an online backup would be on my CPU and on my Internet bandwith.
The performance has been just fine.
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