Mozy--Setting up an Effortless Backup Plan

Computer backups are one of those things that I'd occasionally do every month or so after reading a horror story about someone's drive crapping out. I'd basically copy my entire user folder over to my external and replace the previous backup. I've always meant to set up a more regulated system so that I don't lose anything important (my files for school are constantly changing and I'd hate to lose them). The school has some sort of tape backup mechanism in place, but I'd rather not be tied to the VPN to do my backups. Ideally, I just want it to stay out of the way, but be available easily should something happen. So the other day I had some free time and made investigations around the net into a good backup strategy.

Enter Mozy. For the price of an e-mail address, Mozy provides 2 gigs worth of encrypted backup space, plus another 256 megs for each person that uses your referral code (you also gain 256 megs of free storage space when you sign up using someone's referral code). You download and install Mozy's backup client, modify the default filters so that the file types and folders you need backed up are taken care of, and then you let it do it's thing. The initial backup will probably run overnight, but from there on out it will just run in the background and upload any new files or file changes onto the Mozy servers when your system is idle. According to Windows Task Manager the mozy software uses only ~20 megs of my 2 gigs of ram, and I personally haven't noticed any slowdown. The Mozy tray icon gives you easy access to all of Mozy's controls and to quickly suspend it from making backups. Backups can be easily accessed through Explorer--Mozy adds a "Mozy Remote Backup" location to your system which contains all your backed up files and folders in their original filestructure layout. In the case that your entire hard drive kicks the bucket, you can also access your complete backup from the Mozy website.

All in all Mozy is my new solution for everyday backups. It typically will make a backup of my files about 4 times throughout the day so it's always up to date. It's incremental, so I don't have to backup my whole drive every time I want to backup. I get over 2 gigs of storage free, with the option of unlimited storage for $4.95 a month. Based on my experiences with it thus far, it's likely I'll be upgrading to the unlimited plan and backing up my photos and music there in the near future. If you're looking for an excellent budget plan to backup your most important everyday files, Mozy is an excellent utility and service that I would highly recommend. I'll be installing it on all the computers I do IT for in the near future.

If you'd like to sign up for Mozy using my referral code 7DDRS3, we'll both get an extra 256 megs of storage when you complete your first backup. You can automatically sign up with the referral code by clicking here. If you do, thanks!

Alternatively, if you don't want the extra space or want to use someone else's code, see the main Mozy site.