Mozy Is Great and Cheap

My new Mozy post ...

Online backup pricing can be confusing, especially for multiple computers. I needed to call Mozy to get a real price. In the real world I am backing up 4 office computers with Mozy using a 10 GB limit (which for some reason is 11.6 GB) for $109 per year. I am consuming 3.4 GB currently. I am selective as to what backs up, documents, spreads and QuickBooks files. Picture folders are huge so I use local backup for them.

For my laptop I use Mozy free with 2 GB limit.

Mozy can be slightly irritating with initially selecting the files to back up. As with any new setup a little learning is required if you wish to customize things. Mozy defaults to backing up all the user files which would include the photo files. Customizing takes longer to explain than doing it.

Accessing all the backed up files from each PC and downloading them is simple, much easier than when I used Carbonite.

Carbonite to Mozy With No Regrets (yet)

Edit: I installed Mozy Home by mistake and it would not uninstall. Here is a 64 bit Mozy uninstall program link.

Carbonite Pro was a great solution for me. They had the only plan I found to backup multiple computers for one flat fee under a data limit. It started out at $120 per year for a 20GB limit. Then they changed plans and raised price but I was grandfathered in for one more year at $120. This year's renewal was confusing. One rep. said I could have another year for $120 but another said I would pay $180 or I could pay $500+ for three years because the price will be $500 per year (yikes). My search showed $229 for 250GB so would the real price please stand up? That is a lot of space, I will give them that.

As a backup side note, I always install a separate hard disk on each machine for backup. Cloud is a redundant, off site backup. But I also use the cloud backup to access large files from a distance. It is easy to grab a large current accounting file from the cloud backup. Grabbing that file in other free ways is painful.

Instead of trying to sort the price out, I checked Mozy again. They now have a multiple machine, single price data cap plan and it is cheap compared to Carbonite if their price will truly be $500 per year, which really seems impossibly high. So I chose the 10GB cap for $90 with coupon. Increasing the cap is easy and flexible. I will just use free 2 GB accounts to back up laptops and miscellaneous machines. I limit backups to docs, spread sheets, pdf, etc. and not pics or videos so 2GB is enough for those machines. Carbonite would win the GB per dollar argument but if you don't need the space, why pay for it?

Insufficient time has passed to know all the warts but I like Mozy Pro's control panel much better than Carbonite's. I can access each machine existing on the Pro account under the control panel and download that machine's backup onto another machine. With Carbonite I had to log into carbonite separately with each specific machine's user name and password. The last time I used Carbonite to download files from a backup, it would not accept a multiple file selection and I had to download each file individually. Then of course Carbonite engaged in the pathetic anti Rush Limbaugh add cancel, pandering to the lunatic left. They deserve retribution for simply not having a sense of humor. All things considered, I am happy to throw Carbonite out into the street.

I appreciate Mozy's Live Chat support.