Mozy… Better Backups than Time Machine

I’ve recently installed Mozy on our office systems. What is Mozy? Mozy is an online backup system that offers whole hard drive backups for just $5/month. Best of all, there is no capacity limit.

Mozy offers two plans. First is an absolutely free 2 GB of online storage. The second is their $5/month plan, which will back up every hard drive attached to any single PC or Mac.

But, the best part of all is Mozy’s software for Mac. It automatically backs up all files on your hard drive. And, it only backs up changes, so after the initial backup, it only takes a few minutes to backup your entire hard drive. And, you can download files via a web interface. Plus, it offers pre-set backup options (much like Apple’s Backup bundled with .Mac, so you can back up by the type of file in addition to entire folders/drives).

Worried about security? Mozy encrypts all files with their own shared key, but they go even farther. If you’re worried about Mozy being served with a warrant or something, you can encrypt the data with your own private key (again, all supported in their Mac client). Be warned however, if you lose your copy of the key (should you chose to make your own), all your data is lost. Because of this, I suggest folks just use Mozy’s built-in security, however, the option is there for you to really secure your data.

Mozy is better than Time Machine, it’s just that simple. While they don’t have recover previous versions yet on the Mac (they’re working on it), they will soon. Mozy gives you an off-site backup which can be recovered even after your hard drives melt from that George Forman Grill-inspired house fire.

You can sign up at Mozy’s Web Site and you will then be given the link to download and install their client.

(And yes, they do make it easy to upgrade from the Free plan to the monthly plan in case you want to try it out first)…