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Mozy Review: Mac OS X Online Cloud Backup |
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| Great low-cost online backup with exclusive discount; can back up external drives | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
[Editor's Note: Mozy is offering NextAdvisor visitors an exclusive discount of 15% off with promo code: NEXT. This discount is applied on top of Mozy's annual-plan promotions. Refer to the table below to see how the savings add up.]
Setup Mozy, like other online backup services, is designed to run transparently in the background. Set it up initially and you won't really have to touch it again, unless your hard drive crashes or you want to take advantage of some of its more advanced features. Mozy has recently released it's Mozy 2.0 backup software for the Mac. It's not as well developed as the PC version, but we suspect it's because they feel Mac users will be more hands-on. And for Mozy, they'll have to be. Mozy on the Mac requires you to select individual folders or documents for backup. This is done using the familiar finder window; users click a plus sign next to a file or directory they want to back up. Mozy has recently included an advanced query builder so, for instance, you can ask it to back up every file on your hard drive with a .xls extension. You can get more advanced than that, of course, and that's the idea. Initial backup Your initial backup will take time. In fact, if you have a large hard drive you'll need to keep your computer on and Internet-connected for a day or more. After that, backups are quick, backing up only recently created or changed files. Unlike the PC version, there's no integrated local backup feature, presumably because they think most Mac users are already using Leopard's Time Machine to backup on an external hard drive. Unfortunately, one feature that the Mac version lacks is the PC's versioning. Versioning is a feature that stores previous versions of a file so users can revert to an older version of a changed document. We're not sure why Mozy doesn't include this feature with the Mac version, but it's disappointing. File Restoration Mozy offers a number of methods for file restoration. It works best with the freely downloadable Mozy client. Another option, for those who've had a truly catastrophic crash is to have Mozy send you DVDs (the process takes a few days and is not free). Mozy has recently improved its remote file access web interface so that now accessing a file from a web browser is fast and simple. The previous method was cumbersome and ridiculous, Pricing Mozy's 50GB storage plan starts at $5.10 per month (after discount) for backup of a single PC. An annual plan is $56.01, or just about $3.80 per month. A two-year plan will save you even more. If you want 125 GB of storage, it'll run you $8.50 per month, $93.41 for 1 year, or $178.33 for two years. As a bonus, you can back up 3 PCs, making it a much better value than the 50GB plan. Additional 20GB of storage can be added for $2.00, as can the ability to back up additional computers. Conclusion So, between Carbonite and Mozy, which is best for the Mac? Carbonite's software is less hands-on and offers unlimited storage. On the other hand, Mozy will back up your external hard drives. If the latter is a key feature for you, go with Mozy. If your concern is storage for your money, you might want to look at Carbonite. Sign up for Mozy | Compare to Other Mac Online Cloud Backup |
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