Mozy Online Backup Review

Mozy Online Backup Review – Facts, Company Profile, Product Description, Benefits, Drawbacks, Customer Comments, and Personal Review

Facts & Company Profile

Mozy Online Backup is an online computer backup company that offers options to both business and home users.  The company was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington but has several other offices around the world including ones in Pleasant Grove, Utah; Cork, Ireland; London, UK, and Shanghai, China.  They support over 3 million customers and 70,000 businesses by backing up over 70 petabytes of data around the world.  Their website is at mozy.com.  The CEO of the company was Josh Coates and is now Harel Kodesh under the bigger company, Decho which is owned by an umbrella company, EMC Corporation, a Fortune 500 Company.

Product Description

Mozy offers backup solutions for homes and businesses.  Here, we will focus on the options available for homes.  This service is easy to setup and offers customers a number of different benefits:

Protect personal data files.  You are actually able to get saved all your word documents, spreadsheets, financial documents, photos, pics, music, and more.  You are also able to make customized backups for certain types of unique files.

Mozy iphone and Android apps available.  This makes it easier than ever for you to access your files from your home computer no matter where you are.  This even gives you the ability to download all these files with just one click.

MozyHome works on computers that use Windows 7, Vista, and XP (32 & 64 bit), or Mac OS X 10.7, 10.6, 10.5, & 10.4.

Mozy Security.  Their service is supported by high level encryption.  Customers have the option of deciding whether to use the 448 bit Blowfish encryption or their own computer’s 256 bit AES encryption.

Help and Support.  Customers will find that if they do have any issue with their online backup service that they can contact tech support through live chat, email, video tutorials, knowledge base, and the Mozy Community Forum.

 

Cost and Pricing of Mozy Online Backup

Mozy has two different payment plans.  One option is for one computer at $5.99 a month and the other is for 3 computers at $9.99 a month.  You can also get 1 month for free if you sign up for a year and 3 months for free if you sign up for a 2 year plan on either of these payment plans. Plus, you can add additional computers for only $2 more a month.

***For more information on Mozy Online Backup or to buy it, click on the following link: Mozy Online Backup***

Benefits of Mozy Online Backup

  • Easy to install.
  • Inexpensive service option.
  • Offers high level of encryption protection than some other rivals.
  • Respected leading company in the field.
  • Set and Forget process.
  • Cloud backup reduces risk of theft or loss with backup software that uses an external hard drive.

 

Drawbacks of Mozy Online Backup

  • No disk imaging options currently.

 

Comparison Criteria

1.    Does the service work on multiple computers?

Mozy offers a service for one computer and another option for 3 computers.  You can then also add additional computers for $2 more a month.  The 2 extra computers come at roughly about the same cost as the one single subscription so you are basically getting a one free subscription and paying for the other two.  This is different from Carbonite where you would have to pay for 3 subscriptions at full price.

2.    Does the service have the ability to synchronize files between multiple computers?

 The basic service does not have this feature.  However, Mozy has announced the release of a new private beta of Mozy file sync.  This feature is still in beta mode but will give customers the ability to synchronize files between multiple computers.  Customers can also opt to join the beta process and test out this new feature as well.

3.    Does the service provide you with access to past editions?

 Yes, you have the ability to restore files up to 30 days in the past.  This is not as great as it could be for customers but can help customers who only need to look within the last 30 days for potential file changes.

4.    Does the service have the ability to backup specific files first or separately?

 I do not believe you are able to choose which files can be backed up first.  However, you are prompted at the beginning run to choose the files you want to be backed up.  It also advises you how long the estimated time will be to complete the backup.

5.    What level of encryption does the service provide?

 Mozy offers greater protection to customers than the standard 128 AES encryption.  This can still be used by customers but they also offer the greater level of security with the offering of 448 bit Blowfish Encryption.

6.    Can it support a Mac or PC?  What mobile devices can it support?

Mozy’s Home plan works on PC computers that use Windows 7, Vista and XP.  It can also work on Intel based Macs that use OS X 10.4, 10.5, 10.6 or 10.7.

Mozy does support a number of different mobile devices.  It has apps that can be downloaded and used on the following: iPhone®, iPad® and iPod touch®, and Android™.  This is helpful as you can more readily access a file that may be on your home computer and you are at work or elsewhere.

 

Customer Comments

Here, are some snippets of comments made by actual Mozy customers.  These are in no particular order.

“We had a devastating fire…You really need to make sure that your data is backed up.’ I can’t imagine not having all of those picture and files…. I absolutely recommend Mozy.”
Actual Mozy Customer

 

“…why keep backing things up to an external hard drive that I have to worry about becoming lost, stolen…Cloud backup became an obvious choice.”
Actual Mozy Customer

 

“…Mozy provides another layer of protection for my most important files, like photos, genealogy, and music.”
Actual Mozy Customer

 

“I had a break-in at my house. The robbers… took both of my Macs…Those computers had my entire life on them…Luckily…everything was backed up and I lost nothing. I’m Mozy’s biggest advocate.”

Actual Mozy Customer

 

 

Personal Review

The Mozy Online Backup Service is very easy to use.  The service is easy to download.  This takes a couple of minutes and the first backup steps are just as easy.  You are prompted to choose which files you want backed up and which ones you do not want.  This is very straight-forward and intuitive.  You are also given a projected time to complete the backup.  In my case, it estimated it would take 30 minutes and actually finished in 19 minutes.  So the backup was very quick and this was a full backup here.

The second thing I noticed is the range of different settings you have available.  One setting that I was impressed with was the ability to also save your information to a local hard drive on or connected to your computer.   This provides a greater level of protection.  There is also an option that allows you to setup another proxy connection if needed.  For customers who want to further protect their information, this can be one way to do this.  There is also a section that shows the recent past editions of backups.  This makes it easy to look at past editions or documents that have been since been changed in more recent backups.  Really, the lay out of all these little settings is put together well.  Customers may not find they need all these services but for the ones who do use these occasionally, this will be appreciated over other services like Carbonite’s where these settings are not available.

I did feel that the support for the site could be put together a little better.  I would have preferred to see some more slide show presentations but instead found directions that were mainly in word form.  Most of the material is intuitive anyway but think a little extra effort with slideshow and picture directions would be better for customers.  Regardless, I must admit that I have not had a situation yet where I have had the need to consult support.

 ***We recommend Mozy Online Backup as one of our top options.  If you would like to learn more about it or to buy it, click on the following link: Mozy Online Backup.  You may also want to check out our review for SugarSync Online Backup which we recommend as our top online backup option.  To read its review, click on the following link: SugarSync Online Backup.***