One of the challenges that many people have getting started with Mozy online backup is signing up for the service to begin with. Mozy has created a new video that shows you step by step how to sign up for MozyHome free and MozyHome Unlimited. Of course when it comes time to sign up for MozyHome Unlimited be sure to use our exclusive Mozy promotional code to save on your subscription!
I have been lucky enough to be using the new Mozy version 2 for Windows client for a little while now and I am very pleased with the new features that Mozy has added.
The feature that has impressed me the most so far is the new local backup option. I have always maintained a local backup of my data but now with the new Windows client it is possible to maintain both a local backup and an online backup using just the Mozy client. I no longer have to schedule my local backup using the Windows Scheduler using either xcopy batch files or Microsoft’s Sync Toy. You will need an extra hard drive that is assigned a drive letter in Windows, this does mean that most external USB and Firewire drives will work and extra internal hard drives. Network storage drives will still be an issue however.
The new user interface is an improvement on the previous version as well. It gives you more information on what the client is currently doing. For those that do not want all the information it is turned off by default in the options, so you will not be overwhelmed. I turned it on so I could see what the client is up too.
The client is also considerably faster to upload data. While I have not sat and timed the upload speed I recently added 4gb of new photos and home videos to the computer and they were backed up easily over night. This often took over a day on my DSL connection. The Mozy blog claims it is 25% faster at uploading, I can believe it.
Overall the new Mozy for Windows version is an improvement on the previous version and I highly recommend you sign up for Mozy. It makes maintaining an online and local backup a breeze.
While I do the best I can to make sure that a working promotional code is filled in to the Mozy signup form there are times when either the promotional code has not started working or has expired. You can easily test to see if the Mozy promotional code is valid simply by clicking on the “Continue” button on the Mozy signup form. If the code is not currently working it will produce an error on the form. If there is no error the promotional code is valid and you can use it to save on your initial purchase of Mozy. You can then fill in the rest of the form to signup.
Here is a quick video showing you how to test if the promotional code is valid.
I got this great “How Much Is A Petabyte?” poster from Mozy back in November and have enjoyed having hanging on my office wall. If you have not seen the Mozy blog post “How Much Is A Petabyte?” you should check out the original post on the Mozy blog. Mozy had the image from the post made into posters and was gracious enough to pass one along to me.
Here are a couple photos of the posted in my office.
Thanks a ton for the poster Mozy!
Choosing an online backup company can be a difficult choice. When I started researching online backup I looked at the majority of the consumer choices and I decided on Mozy. One of the biggest contenders was Carbonite, and there is no doubt that Carbonite is a good service. They offer a solid online backup service and are a reliable company from what I have seen. That being said they were not the company I choose for my online backup and there are several reasons why.
There are several good things about Carbonite that are similar to Mozy. They offer unlimited backup, use 448-bit Blowfish encryption on all data that is transferred and they are reasonably priced. Unfortunately Carbonite fell short on a few other details that I thought were important.
First there are several file types that Carbonite does not automatically backup. Primarily video files. This was important to me. I have several GB of home movies that I want to make sure are safe and Carbonite did not want to back them up. I also have several personal projects that are executable files that I wanted to backup. Carbonite refused to select them by default, even though I had selected the folders they were in. This type of file exclusion was not acceptable. Using Mozy I was able to select the folder to backup and all the files in the folder were selected regardless of the file type.
Backing up your files is one thing, but when disaster strikes you need to restore those files. The restoration process for Carbonite is the major reason I decided to go with Mozy. Carbonite only offers restores through their desktop client. What happens if I can’t install the client on my new computer, for example when a new version of Windows is released and Carbonite does not support it yet? The amount of data I was expecting to initially backup was already over 100gb. Downloading that amount of data can take an extremely long time. Mozy won simply because they offered more ways for me to get my data back. With Mozy you have choices to do a Web restore, a client restore or order a restore on DVD. Unofficially I have also seen tweets that Mozy will send you an external hard drive restore in place of DVD’s. These restore options pushed Mozy ahead of Carbonite when I was deciding what online backup service to go with.
I think Mozy is the best online backup service, but whether you choose Carbonite or Mozy the most important thing is you need to backup your files. Do not leave it to chance. Subscribe and start backing up today.
Online backups are great, but that first backup can be painful to get done. When you are backing up a large amount of data online your initial backup can take along time to complete. How long your initial backup will take depends on the upload speed of your Internet service provider. Internet services vary and they are always quick to point out how fast their download speed is, but they often hide in the fine print their upload speed. While their is no way to speed up your initial upload, other than to find a fast Internet service provider, here is a way to make it less painful and to give you an opportunity to learn the Mozy interface.
Instead of selecting all of the folders and files you want to backup at once when you configure your backup. Prioritize the order of your backup. For example, select your My Documents folder but leave out your My Pictures, My Music and other large folders. By prioritizing your initial backup you can make sure your most important files are backed up first.
The order you choose to backup your files is up to you but the order I often use for new Mozy installs is: office documents, photos, music then videos. By doing the initial upload in this order the office documents that people rely on are uploaded first. I can then check and make sure the files are uploaded correctly and try a test restore on important databases and financial documents. If you have a large amount of photos, music and videos you might want to break those uploads up in smaller parts as well. If you are a photographer you might choose a different order, but this works well for many home backup situations.
While this process might seem tedious to some, it will help you to learn the Mozy configuration interface. It will also allow you to double check to make sure that all of the file syou want backed up are actually included in the backup. There is nothing worse than having a hard drive fail and then discovering that your selection of office documents did not include open office documents that you routinely use. Once you have all of the folders and files that you want backed up your backups will not take very long, since Mozy only backs up changed and new files after that point.
One of the features Mozy is missing is a way to sync files between two or more computers. MozyHome Unlimited is great for backing up a single home computer, and MozyPro is great for businesses needing an easy to use off site backup, but syncing files between two or more computers is beyond what Mozy currently does. Fortunately there is an easy solution, Dropbox. While some people use Dropbox as an online backup solution, that is not what it is really made for, mainly because it only syncs one folder, the Dropbox folder with its online servers and your other computers.
Currently I use Dropbox on my main desktop and my laptop. It works great. When I need files available on my laptop when I am going to be working out of my office I just copy them to my Dropbox and they are automatically synced with my laptop. If I create new documents and want to make sure I have them on my desktop, I just copy them to my Dropbox and they show up on my desktop ready to be edited.
Dropbox is great, and while I only use some of the basic features of Dropbox, I no longer have to worry about carrying a USB flash drive. The files are just there for me to use. The beautiful thing about using Dropbox and Mozy on the same computer is that I can automatically include the Dropbox folder in my MozyHome unlimited or MozyPro backup and have all the files that I copy and create in my Dropbox on my laptop automatically backed up to my Mozy account. This gives me multiple copies of the files between Dropbox and Mozy. In the event that a hard drive dies or my computers are stolen I should be able to restore the files between those two sources.
Dropbox and Mozy have made a great combination for me. Mozy because it is just there backing up my files, Dropbox for making it easy to sync the files I need between my desktop and my laptop. If I could just take the photos I have on either service and share them on Facebook, Flickr etc then I could be in social media heaven, until then I will enjoy the excellent combination of Mozy and Dropbox.
MozyHome Free offers 2GB for free. That is a great start to protecting all of your important files. Eventually though you will want to upgrade to the full version of MozyHome Unlimited. The problem is, since you already have a Mozy account there is no place to enter a promotional code in the upgrade form.
Currently there is no way to use a promotional code on an upgrade from MozyHome Free. The only work around is to sign up again using a different email address and use the promotional code with the new sign up. While this is not an ideal situation knowing ahead of time can help. Here are a couple of things you might want to consider.
When signing up for a MozyHome Free account create a new free email account at Yahoo, GMail or Hotmail. That way when you want to upgrade to MozyHome Unlimited you can use your regular email address.
Be prepared to re-upload the 2GB of data that you had uploaded with MozyHome Free. This is a not a huge amount of data, so it should not take to long to do it over again.
When you are ready to sign up for MozyHome Unlimited be sure to visit MozyPromotionalCode.com for the latest Mozy Coupons and Promotional Codes.
Mozy is pre-configured to back up when your computer is idle, but occasionally that can create problems or computer slowdowns when you really need your computer. Thankfully you can schedule Mozy to perform backups at specific time intervals.
Windows users do the following:
Now Mozy will perform your backups at the set time. No more coming to your computer and having it move at a snails pace because a backup is happening, or slow Internet access because Mozy is using all your bandwidth.
Make sure your files are safely backup up regularly with Mozy scheduled backup!