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.
Unfortunately, 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?
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