Review of MozyHome: A secure online data backup service
Are you looking for an easy to use online data backup solution? If so, consider reading this in-depth review of MozyHome Online Backup Service, owned and managed by EMC Corporation. Mozy offers it provides a lot of handy features for a competitive price. Let's find out, is this service worth your money and time.
A lot of online data backup services have popped up since high speed internet connections started becoming common, but among them there are only a few that are worth your money and time. There are some worth trying, well known and feature-packed online backup solutions like Mozy, which provide online backup solutions that are built to secure the user files from security threats and unscrupulous monitoring. Their service has been in the market for quite some time. In fact, Mozy is the one of the first online backup providers that started providing affordable backup plans for users. It is owned and managed by EMC Corporation, which is one of the leading data storage and protection software vendors. It provides a lot of advanced features at competitive prices, and has a well designed, user friendly UI that even newbies can figure out easily. It will grant you peace of mind realizing that all your valuable files are in safe hands. Let's find out what it offers.
When it comes to plans and pricing, sadly, Mozy doesn't providing unlimited backup plans. There is a free 2GB plan for home users who want to try it out. You can always boost up your free storage space by 256 MB, referring your friends or family to the service. If you are satisfied with the service and need more space, then you can either go for 50GB or 125GB plan that are available at $5.99 or $9.99/month. Still, if the 125 GB plan is not good enough, then you can purchase extra storage that will set you back $2 per 20GB. If you would like to include backup support for more computers, you'd have to pay additional $2/month per computer. Many others in the market provide backup support for unlimited computers at even cheaper price, so it's certainly a big downside.Features of MozyHome Online backup
Setting up MozyHome is really simple. With just a few clicks, you will able to set up the directories and files you would like to backup, including message folder and contacts. The user interface is clean and straightforward so even newbies can understand and operate it. There is a tab named 'Backup Sets', where you can search, categorize and backup files by file types, such as documents, videos, photos, music, etc. Let's say you need to backup all of your photos stored in your computer, all you have to do is choose photos backup set from the left pane, then Mozy will search your whole storage and list all image files, which means you don't have to browse through entire directories for all your photos - Just choose the backup set, select the files need to be backed up, and you are ready to go. Right from the user interface, you can even throttle your backups, so that the process doesn't conflict with other network uses.
Backup and restore features of Mozy are extremely versatile and well working. It can automatically backup data to the storage as you make modifications to your data. This prevents unexpected data loss, and enables you to get your hands on where you left off or save data to another machine. The first backup will take some time, especially if you have a huge amount of data on your hard drive. And of course, depending on the data size and Internet connection speed, backup time may vary. If you are using low speed Internet connection, then better not consider any of the other online backup options. Once it done creating the initial backup, subsequent backups will be quick, backing up only modified or recently created data. However, Mozy doesn't provide continuous backups like many others do, but it does provide schedule backups so that you can back up your data on hourly, daily or week basis or you can just use the backup button for immediate backup. Mozy can also backup the external drives that are connected to the system. It can also backup data to an external drive as it uploads to cloud, and save your time doing two backup procedures.
MozyHome provides a lot of options for file restoration. It really works best with the downloadable MozyHome client. You can also request Mozy to send your restore files on DVDs, but it is not free and of course you'd have to wait for a few days to receive it. Just like others, Mozy also providing a web interface to access your data, an ideal option for accessing any stored data on the run. But the web interface is a tad clunky. Unlike Mozy client, here you'd have to go through some cumbersome steps to download your files. Thanks to File Versioning feature, Mozy keeps unlimited version of your file for up to 30 days, which means you can go back to any version of a specific file within this time frame. Mozy provides mobile apps for Apple iOS and Android devices, which are pretty much straightforward and easy to use. Sadly, currently there is no Windows phone app available.
Protecting essential data from cyber criminals is not anymore a priority for just financial companies and government offices. Now a days, protection of personal data is also that much necessary. This is one of the areas where Mozy actually shines. Here, security is high when it comes to encrypting your data both before and after upload. All of your data will be encrypted locally using military-grade encryption, and then it will be transferred it to the online storage via using a secure SSL connection and once again it will be encrypted before saving it on the cloud storage. To encrypt your data, you can choose your own personal encryption key or a key based on 448-bit Blowfish algorithm. However, I recommend you to choose your own private key as it is much more safe. Keep in mind that you get only one chance to choose the key, so give it a good one, and don't forget it, if you lose your key, you lose your files as well. I must say, I tried inside out to reset the key but I didn't find any single option related to this. Since only you are the only one who will know the key, Mozy support team can't help you either. Even if they can, I don't think they would bother doing so. All of your data will be saved on company's state-of-the-art data centers, which are highly secured and monitored 24/7. Also, all of your data will be stored in multiple locations for extra security.
When it comes to support, I'm really not that impressed. The company doesn't provide live chat or phone support for free MozyHome users, and even paid MozyHome users have to throw some extra bucks if they need phone support. If you go for Pro or Enterprise plan, then you will get the benefits of free phone support. However, you can access tutorials, FAQs and community forums if you are a free user.Conclusion
Mozy is one of the easy to use online backup solutions now available in the market. If you have a small amount of data to backup, then you can make full use of the free 2GB account. Plus, users get additional 256MB by referring others to the program, and that would be an awesome deal for a lot of people. Even though users have to pay for restore DVD sent via FedEx, it is certainly a handy option. The service is also very secure, and every data packet leaving from your computer will be encrypted.
Yet, there are some downsides that might be a deal breaker for some users. Most importantly, Mozy doesn't offer unlimited storage or supports unlimited computers. Not to mention, there are many providers in the space, who can outperform Mozy in this matter. Another thing you would notice, unlike others, you couldn't able to exit Mozy application from the system tray unless you force close it via task manager. And, no phone or chat support for MozyHome free users, even paid MozyHome users have to pay for phone support, so it's a big downside of this service. At least for me, good support from the service provider is necessary. In fact, that would be the first thing I would investigate if I have any interest in a service. There are a lot of other online backup options out there, such as BackBlaze, MyPCBackup, Carbonite, etc, feel free to check the reviews of those as well.
