Mozy 2.0 Adds "2xProtect": Local Hard Drive Backup

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://mozy.com/landing/win-2' target='_blank'>http://mozy.com/landing/win-2</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Mozy, the industry-leading online backup service from EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC), today announced general availability of MozyHome 2.0 and MozyPro 2.0 on Windows. New enhancements include faster upload speeds and decreased bandwidth usage, new convenience and access features, and Mozy 2xProtect - a new feature which allows Mozy users to back up to a local external drive in addition to Mozy's online data centres at no additional cost."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//dht/auto/1274287518.usr1.png" style="border: 0;" /></p><p>I'm a <a href="http://www.mozy.com/?ref=3f9a896b&amp;kbid=30184&amp;m=4&amp;i=75" target="_blank">Mozy</a> [Affiliate] user myself, and a relatively happy one, so this update impacts me directly - and for a full dot release, I have to admit I was a bit underwhelmed. Not many visible changes in the client software; it's not immediately apparent how the local back angle figures in, though I don't need to use that anyway (I use <a href="http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/sbse.html" target="_blank">SyncbackSE</a>). I'm very interested in the 25% faster backups - I'll have to do a little test and see if it's noticeable. What doesn't seem to be fixed yet is the most incredible flaw in the software/service I can imagine: confirmed for me by Mozy tech support agent Rovin Shukla a few weeks ago, if any metadata changes are made to a file, the <em>entire file</em> needs to be backed up again. That 800 MB video file that you added a single new keyword to? Mozy apparently needs to back up the whole thing again. Yeah, that sucks. That one big issue aside, I'm really happy I have 450+ GB of data backed up with Mozy - I do not fear the Data Loss Reaper!</p>

[Hooch Tan]

Wow! 450+ GB? Do you have any estimates as to how long that took to back up? I presume that your costs are kept fairly low as well?

[Jason Dunn]

Wow! 450+ GB? Do you have any estimates as to how long that took to back up? I presume that your costs are kept fairly low as well?

Months. I started with my really critical data - maybe 100 GB or so, got that up, then slowly added more folders and data until I reached the 400+ GB mark. I came close to blowing my monthly ISP data transfer cap once, but slowed down and didn't get my ISP mad at me. :D

Ultimately because this is a third-level backup, the fact that it took months didn't bother me too much. I'm very happy knowing that my data is safe off-site, and every new file I add is uploaded automatically, without me having to life a finger. That's worth a lot to me...but even with 450+ GB, it's still only costing me about $4.50 USD per month. That's why I don't understand why EVERYONE isn't doing off-site backup like this. It's such a no-brainer!