Data backup has become a huge interest of mine. My MacBook has been struggling lately so I decided to upgrade to a MacBook Pro. Although Mac can easily transfer my data from one laptop to another, I thought this would be a great excuse to test out data backup. I went with Mozy (www.mozy.com) since it is endorsed by one my favorite Mac bloggers.
I signed up for one computer backup costing about $5/month. I like the idea of virtual data backup instead of an external hard drive due because if I spill water on all of my electronics or my house burns down, the data will still be in the cloud somewhere. Mozy is endorsed by iJustine which to me implied a certain level of reliability.
Before beginning the process, I made sure to contact Mozy’s technical support to ensure that backup can be done on one computer and easily restored on another. They confirmed that this was something they could do. I started the backup which took 3 days for about 40GBs of music, photos and documents. I decided to run the backup while I was on a long weekend and would not be using my laptop. When the backup was complete, I requested a web restore. The restore didn’t work. I chatted with tech support and they restarted the restore and let me know when my files were ready for download. When I received the notice that the files were ready, I went to download them… nothing happened.
I contacted tech support again and he said I should perform the regular backup (which I had been told will not work when pulling in the data from an old computer). I alerted him to that and they recommended that I do another web restore. At this point, I’ve owned my new computer for almost two weeks and have not been able to get started. I gave in and went to the Apple store where they transfered all my data in about an hour and all the hard work was done for me.
I know that the main purpose of Mozy is not data transfer but backup. That being said, if they can’t figure out how to recover my files in this situation, I am very concerned that they will not be able to do so in a situation when I need to perform a backup. This is why I’ve always been a fan of Mac, they really focus on the tech support and making sure things work so you don’t need technical support. I wouldn’t recommend Mozy to any of my friends or family at this point. I haven’t given up but I would like to be sure that my data is backed up and can be recovered when I need it.
