Mozy Online Backup Service Revisited
Thank you Pat for the heads up on Mozy’s less than thrilling restore performance. You had me scared for a moment so before checking online for Mozy restore issues I did a little restore of my own.
First, I went into Windows Explorer and renamed my website folder under My Documents. This is one of the folders I had backed up. Then I opened the configuration window in Mozy. The manual had said that a “Restore” option would appear after the first backup was complete. That answered one question, the backup had completed in just a few hours last night while I slept. I selected restore and then selected the folder I wanted to restore to my hard drive. Granted, this folder amounts to just under 1 megabyte of information. Not much. The restore took only 3-4 minutes. Wait, at 4 minutes per MB, a restore of 37 GB would take - days.
Next, let’s check the accuracy of the restore. I opened Microsoft Front Page and opened the folder that had been restored. I opened the index.htm file. Everything appeared good. Wait again, there are broken links. Looks like a few files are missing. That would certainly be an issue. On such a small test run, you would expect better. I checked the backed up files on Mozy and the missing files are not there either. Looks like Mozy failed to backup the entire folder. Hum…. Then I checked the original folder on my hard drive - the one that had been renamed before the restore. It contained all the files intact. Based on this small test run, I would not recommend Mozy for online backups. If I had backed up the entire 37 GB of data and paid $4.95 per month to be able do it, I most likely would never had known that some of my files never backed up. How could I check each and every file? Apparently there is no verification process. As the Last Old Dinosaur (who needs to start his own blog and won’t listen to me, aka Dad) always has to remind me - test, test and test again.
Next, at Pat’s suggestion, I Googled “restore Mozy” and found this interesting article. No need for me to go any further. The backup process in Mozy appears to be everything it promises but the restore process reveals a host of problems.
In conclusion, thanks again Pat. I will not be using Mozy for backing up my scanned genealogical records. I think I’ll stick to my external drive or even a networked drive on GetAlong’s computer. Apparently, you get what you pay for there - not much.
That’s pretty scary stuff - I’m sure a lot of people who rely on Mozy haven’t taken the time to check that the restore process works OK.
All I can say is that I’ve been using Angel Backup’s online backup service - http://www.angelbackup.com - and the restore option works perfectly.
They may be a little more expensive than Mozy, but you can backup more than one PC, or even external hard drives. And, like you say, apparently you get what you pay for!