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Leaving Mozy’s online backup and switching to CrashPlan

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What do you think you’ll do then
I bet that’ll shoot down your plane
It’ll take you a couple of vodka and tonics
To set you on your feet again
Maybe you’ll get a replacement
There’s plenty like me to be found
Mongrels who ain’t got a penny
Sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground

-Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

I just ended a four-year relationship and I’m feeling wistful in an Elton John sort of way. You may have seen the announcement yesterday from EMC’s online backup service Mozy that it was ending unlimited storage plans. We paid about $150 a year to back up three computers and some 300 gigabytes of data to the cloud with Mozy. Under Mozy’s new pricing structure, which starts at $6/month for one computer and 50 GB of storage, we’d have to pay almost $400 a year. Ouch.

Coincidentally, Ars Technica’s John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin of the awesome 5by5.tv podcast network were just discussing the options for cloud-based backups on their past two shows. They and others seem to favor CrashPlan as the best cloud-based backup offering for Mac users (it also has clients for Windows and Linux users).

CrashPlan still offers unlimited plans. For 1 computer for one year, it’s $50 with discounts for ordering more years at once. For two to 10 computers, the family plan starts at $120 for a year. And as often happens in situations like this, CrashPlan saw an opening and they’re offering a 15% discount to former Mozy users.

Mac users should stick with online backup Mozy

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header-mozy-logo.pngFor more than two years, I’ve been quite happily using the Mozy online backup service. Now owned by storage giant EMC, Mozy offers unlimited backup space for under $5 a month per computer and a slick Mac program that automatically uploads new files in the background (there’s also a Windows version but I don’t use it). You pick which folders or files for Mozy to watch and after an initial upload (one that can take literally days!), only changed files get sent to Mozy’s servers. The service has excellent security features, encrypting all data on the way to Mozy’s servers and storing it in an even more deeply encrypted format once it arrives. The truly paranoid can provide their own encryption “key” meaning no one without it — not even anyone at Mozy — can decode the files. I currently have over 150 GB stored and backed up with Mozy.

Of course, there are terrific debates and comment wars over which is the best of the various Mac-compatible online backup services. There’s also BackJack, Carbonite and BackBlaze to name just a few. Some people even prefer opening an account with Amazon’s cheap S3 online storage service and using a front-end program like Jungle Disk to backup. I have not tried most of the other options, though I did use Jungle Disk for a bit and found it too slow and unwieldly for me (plus given how much data I have, Mozy with a multi-year discount is much cheaper than S3).

I’ve positively reviewed Mozy on previous occasions but I wanted to revisit the issue because of a recent bug it caused with Apple’s Time Machine backup program and the subsequent reaction (or over-reaction in some cases) from Mozy users. It seems that after Mozy issued an upgrade (to version 1.4) on August 6, the client program began to interfere with Time Machine’s ability to backup to Apple’s Time Capsule wireless hard disk. In fact, I was among those affected but I was on vacation away from my Time Capsule so I didn’t know anything was wrong.

For about a week, the problem was driving some Time Capsule/Mozy users crazy trying to figure out what was wrong. I think it’s fair to say that the Time Machine-Time Capsule scheme has been far from problem-free. Since there have been so many problems with the two Apple bits, a lot of people didn’t realize Mozy was part of the problem at first. And some were advised (by Apple folks, I think) to reformat their Time Capsule disks, losing vast gigabytes of old backups. That’s never good.

Mozy responded quickly once the problem was revealed, posting on Apple forums, on its own blog and via Twitter.

A sample of the Twitter responses from Mozy:

moztwitjpg.jpg

To me, that’s pretty darn good customer service. The outrage from some continues however, and that’s where I’ll have to part company with the critics. The problem was the kind of thing that happens sometimes. It only affected a small minority of Mozy’s Mac users (myself included). The bug itself didn’t corrupt any data or wreck previous backups. The company got right on it and issued a revised version (1.4.3) within seven days.

Sure, you can decide that if a software company lets you down once you should move on. But I think if that’s your policy, you’ll be moving on quite frequently. There have been serious, serious bugs in at one time or another in many programs I rely on including numerous problems that corrupted data with Time capsule and Time machine. But it’s worth stepping back from the outrage and thoughtfully considering whether you should dump Mozy just because of this incident.

Despite the temporary glitch, Mozy still retains its powerful strengths, including the backing of a formidable parent company, full-featured Mac client software, excellent pricing for people with lots of data and — in my experience — responsive customer service.

If you disagree with my analysis or your experience was different than I described, please feel encouraged to post a comment below.

p.s. No matter which online backup service you use, remember that it should be only one piece of your backup strategy. Online providers can disappear, data could become corrupted or whatnot. Always have multiple, redundant, independent backups.

Previous coverage:

An update on online backup: Mozy’s still good (12/8/2008)

PCMag review misses Mozy’s greatness (4/17/2008)

An update on online backup: Mozy’s still good

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I just posted a lengthy comment at MacIntouch about using Mozy for online backup, so I thought it might be worth re-posting here:

I have been using Mozy since April 2007 on both my iMac and Powerbook Pro. It is fast and reliable, working in the middle of the night to upload new or changed files. It’s customizable, too. You can set backups to run only between certain hours, when the computer is less busy and/or on a set schedule. You can also limit how much of your Internet connection Mozy will use for uploads.

Another key feature is called block level backup. This means Mozy only uploads the parts of a file that have actually changed since the last backup, not the whole file, saving bandwidth. Finally, Mozy encrypts your data when it goes over the web and stores it in an encrypted format. You can even choose to use your own encryption key, in which case no one, not even at Mozy, can unlock your files without your key.

I have tested and had no problems with the restore function. You can restore files from any computer with Mozy installed or any web browser. You can choose to download files to their original location or to a new spot. You can also ask for set of DVDs to be shipped to you via FedEx for a steep fee (50 cents a gigabyte plus $30 processing fee plus Fedex actual shipping charge).

The economic model may or may not work for you. Mozy charges $4.95 a month per computer for unlimited backup space (I paid ahead for 2 years at a discounted rate of $4.33/month). I have a huge amount of data I want backed up, so this is a pretty economical option for me. I tried using Amazon’s S3 service with Jungledisk but found it to be slow and more expensive for the amount of data I backed up. Mozy is owned by EMC, the storage giant with over $13 billion of revenue last year, so you can feel pretty good that they won’t be going out of business in the middle of night.

Some reviewers have really missed the boat on Mozy. PC Magazine was way off, I thought, in their April 2008 write-up, completely misstating the restore feature’s various capabilities.

Prior coverage:

PCMag review misses Mozy’s greatness (4/17/2008)

Shifting to Interarchy for online backup at S3 (1/24/2007)

Phew, that’s a mighty backup (12/30/2006)

Everybody’s thinking about S3 for backup (10/4/2006)

PCMag review misses Mozy’s greatness

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PC Magazine has posted a bunch of reviews of online back-up service, including Pressman household favorite, Mozy. I use Mozy on two computers to automatically back up almost 120 GB of data — that’s everything I care about: music, movies, photos, documents, email, the kitchen sink. It’s an unlimited service that cost $208 for 24 months on two computers (or about $4.33 per computer per month). Everything is encrypted before it’s sent over the Internet and is stored encrypted on Mozy’s servers. Mozy is owned by storage titan EMC so it’s not likely to disappear in the middle of the night, either. I use the Mac client, which supposedly has fewer features than its PC counterpart, but it’s great for my needs.

Mozy menu showing restore optionUnfortunately, the PC Mag review has a completely erroneous description of trying to restore files. Mozy puts an icon on my Mac’s menu bar (I think it’s in the system tray on Windows PCs) that, when clicked, offers a menu item called “Restore files…” Selecting that choice brings up the restore program with a simple, easy to use file browser of every file from every back version going back seemingly forever (files I delete are deleted by Mozy 30 days later). Click on a file, choose a restore destination and presto. here’s your file. I can also go to Mozy’s web site and select any file or files to restore and download them directly.
And yet PC Mag’s reviewer claims:

I can think of three cases where you need to restore files: accidental deletion, a hard drive crash, or the loss or destruction of a computer. I was less than impressed with the service’s method of dealing with the first case. Neither right-clicking nor double-clicking on the system tray resulted in a restore choice. MozyHome’s Web site offers a few suggestions, all troublesome. The first, right-clicking on the file name in an Explorer window, isn’t possible for deleted files. The next, sending away for a DVD containing restored files, costs $66 and requires waiting for a FedEx envelope. For one file? I don’t think so. A Web restore choice, in which Mozy sends you an e-mail containing the requested files is the best choice, but it has a security problem: Your files are unencrypted at the service’s premises and transmitted like that via the Internet.

Almost everything here is wrong. Where to start? The Mozy icon menu lists a restore choice that’s direct and simple. You can right click on existing folders to restore files that once resided inside of them, too. The second choice, a DVD, is obviously for other, very different situations and it’s great to have that option available if needed. And the third option, downloading directly, only sends unencrypted files if you’re using Mozy’s generic encryption key. Security-paranoids can have their own encryption key and download encrypted restored files. What’s up PC Mag?