Any cheaper alternatives to Mozy?

cindyg

cindyg

New member
Any cheaper alternatives to Mozy - just needed for photo storage

$60 a year just seems HIGH for online storage - anyone know of any good alternatives to Mozy?

ETA: I have two EHD's now and I back up my main one on the second every so often (the second one stays unplugged and put up except when I use it to back-up). I would just die if something happened to all my photos though because 90% of DD's photos from birth to present are digital. The photos are my main priority for backing up somewhere (in addition to my EHD). Right now I have about 6 GB in photos so I guess that is why I think Mozy is too much, I don't care about automatic back-up or anything like that - just want somewhere with about 10 GB of online storage at a good price.

Also - I do have a paid online photo gallery with ImageEvent but a few months ago they lost over 100 of my photos so I don't trust the online galleries as a source of serious storage anymore.
 
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Like Deanna said, Mozy and Carbonite are the most used, most reliable, and competitively priced for each other. I really don't think I'd trust any online backup outside of them.

An EHD will run you more at the start, but if it lasts longer than 2 years or so, it's the same or cheaper than Mozy. Personally I have one that's going on 3.5 years and is doing just fine.
 
$60 is CHEAP :) the expensive other option is spending $1800 to have a person reconstruct your EHD in a 'clean room'. Ask me how I know :( So, I love Mozy and think it's the best and cheapest insurance I could ever ask for.
 
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I should mention that I chose Mozy over a new EHD because one of my concerns was theft or fire. Having my pictures and files backed up away from my house was a big relief for me.
 
I know I've said it before, but... IMO, I wouldn't consider an EHD as a primary source of backup. As a secondary, yes. As a primary, no.

EHDs can crash at any given moment, and almost always without warning. I have been on the bad end of the my-EHD-died-what-do-I-do-now situation before and it's not fun. Thankfully I was able to eventually get all of my stuff off of mine, but if I hadn't I would have been screwed. Not fun. Also consider anything else that can happen - natural disaster, child disaster, etc. Mozy is off-site and has multiple backups, which means that nothing is going to permanently destroy it (child, fire, me dropping it, or otherwise!)

I use Mozy and really like it. It's easy and automatic (which means I don't have to remember to do anything!) $60 does sound like a lot over a year's time... but after thinking I had lots 2 years worth of memories, I am more than willing to pay $5/month and have some peace of mind.

I can't even get out of Starbucks every morning for less than $5! :p
 
I have 2 EHD's, plus all photos and layouts are burned to DVD as well as saved on my laptop HD for a period of time. One EHD stays at home, the other stays at work and gets brought home once a month to be backed up, and is rarely turned on and plugged in. So I have a primary EHD and a secondary EHD.

My DH wasn't comfortable putting anything online, so Mozy isn't an option for me.
 
I love my Mozy!! I was signed up when they were having a discount so it was $100 for 2yrs. Seems like a lot but I know I am taken care of for two years. NO worries. And I do regular backup too. So it is very nice!!

And $5 a month is an awesome price. Here we have Qwest (telephone) and they charge $14.95 a month for online storage. So $5 is a score!!
 
I have never been able to upload all my stuff on mozy and i bought a year subscription...it is so flippin' SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW and more times than not I get a "could not connect to server"...thus doing NOTHING overnight at all but had computer and hard drive up and running for no reason. My son is going to see about making me a RAID system...but having him look into the fine details.

I spent $700 for data restore and not all of it was 100% recoverable...so the price for Mozy really is cheap in comparison. I had 2 EHD and both failed. I asked our cable provider if the faster internet (upgrade) was worth the extra $ for uploading...he asked what I was trying to do and I told him...he said no...it was not worth it as it was such a small difference in speed in comparison.

I guess I need to get back to writing more DVDs again. ...that is what the geeks at the place that did my data restore recommended...ehd AND DVD both of them...
 
We had Mozy as well, but it just wouldn't cooperate with my computer at all. I was so sad, I never could figure out what the problem was. DH has it on his, but that's fine. Scrap stuff would be a PITA to replace, but I COULD. I cannot replace my kids pics, and they are on DH's computer, so we're good.
 
Another Mozy fan here, too! After numerous crashes and being devastated by the losses, I will gladly pay the $5 a month to know that my photos and stuff are protected.

The only problem that I've really had with them is sometimes when I need to download a scrapkit, a few elements or papers might be missing. It's weird - I think it has something to do with the file names being too long for winrar to unzip them.
 
I've been using Mozy for quite some time now (18mo at least) and have been very happy with it! I think $5/mo is a steal for not having to worry about losing all my stuff if my computer or EHD crashes. I've also heard a lot of good things about BackBlaze, they also charge $5/mo and can also backup EHD's.
 
I have Mozy and LOVE IT!!! I have lost 2 EHD's in the past year and thankfully everything is backed up to Mozy so I don't worry about losing stuff. Plus I also burn all of my photos and layouts to DVD and put in our fireproof safe.
 
Sharon Kay said:
I have never been able to upload all my stuff on mozy and i bought a year subscription...it is so flippin' SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW and more times than not I get a "could not connect to server"...
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Sharon - I had the same problem initially, but then I went in to mess with the configuration of what it was backing up and realized it was backing up EVERYTHING on my hard drive. I was like, wait a minute...if my computer crashes I really don't care about the Word documents (because there's nothing important on my computer), computer games, and random other stuff I have saved on there. What I really want to save are my photos and my scrap stash. So I changed the configuration of what I back up to just those things I really want and that has made a HUGE difference. That initial backup still took about 7-8 hours, but now my weekly backups only take about 1-2 hours and they're scheduled for Monday morning while I'm at work. I have had a few times when I get a "lost connection" message, but our internet service is so sketchy on Maui, so I just run it again that night and it usually goes through. I also changed the speed dial thing so that it backs up faster (but makes my computer run slower if I'm trying to do anything, but that doesn't matter since it backs up when I'm not home anyway). You should try changing some of those settings. If I can do it (I am sooo NOT a computer whiz!!) anyone can!

I say it's worth the hassle!!!
 
I use Mozy as well - and I prefer to call it $5 a month rather than $60 a year! :p

It took about 3 weeks to do my initial backup of 190 gig (all my photos, layouts and scrapping stash) but now the updated backups don't take more than a couple hours. To make it go as fast as possible I changed the settings to fastest backups / slower computer (I don't do this on the computer I scrap on - it's a separate desktop in our house) and I let it run all day and all night.

All of my stuff is in 3 locations total - my laptop, various EHDs and Mozy. I like the factor of Mozy being offsite in case of fire or whatever.
 
BrodoNY0123 said:
Like Deanna said, Mozy and Carbonite are the most used, most reliable, and competitively priced for each other. I really don't think I'd trust any online backup outside of them.

An EHD will run you more at the start, but if it lasts longer than 2 years or so, it's the same or cheaper than Mozy. Personally I have one that's going on 3.5 years and is doing just fine.
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Exactly! I've had mine for four years and it's still going strong.
 
JenTapler said:
Sharon - I had the same problem initially, but then I went in to mess with the configuration of what it was backing up and realized it was backing up EVERYTHING on my hard drive. I was like, wait a minute...if my computer crashes I really don't care about the Word documents (because there's nothing important on my computer), computer games, and random other stuff I have saved on there. What I really want to save are my photos and my scrap stash. So I changed the configuration of what I back up to just those things I really want and that has made a HUGE difference. That initial backup still took about 7-8 hours, but now my weekly backups only take about 1-2 hours and they're scheduled for Monday morning while I'm at work. I have had a few times when I get a "lost connection" message, but our internet service is so sketchy on Maui, so I just run it again that night and it usually goes through. I also changed the speed dial thing so that it backs up faster (but makes my computer run slower if I'm trying to do anything, but that doesn't matter since it backs up when I'm not home anyway). You should try changing some of those settings. If I can do it (I am sooo NOT a computer whiz!!) anyone can!

I say it's worth the hassle!!!
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Well I have it set just to upload the digital kits I have sorted out since the crash and my templates...and it has never completed. I only run it at night and run it at slower computer/faster upload. The computer that has the ehd plugged into it is hard wired to the router. Maybe I have too much stuff? I haven't even told it to upload my pictures yet (have it on 2 drives plus CDs).
 
I never managed to get Mozy to work for me. I know I wasn't uploading too much because I was just trying the free 1GB. Days later it was still trying to upload and dragging my computer down. I uploaded all my photos to SmugMug. Losing the rest of it is more an inconvenience than anything. I've lost it all before. EHDs and DVDs are sufficient for me. Maybe I'll lose a few kits in the restore process, but the photos are safe & they are what is important.
 
I am a worry-butt when it comes to protection... I have a 1 terabit personal server and now a terabit EHD back up of the server and Mozy back up of the EHD... In May, when the server went down while my hubby was out of town on business, I just panic that I LOST EVERYTHING... is when my hubby (who is, by night, a producer of his dad's polka/big band radio show has more audio files (20 years worth) than I have digi kits... but I'm fast over taking him... LOL) looked into off site storage. DH, anal engineer by day, looked at all the different options and found that for recovery (hope never to use it) Mozy was one of the best... so as others put, $5 a month is like putting one more kit on the wish list... :glare:

*Edited* It took over 2 weeks for us to move over 500+ GB of data to Mozy... it just chugs away... probabably it's because the update is on another computer in the basement... the network connection is a bit slower, but I don't really notice that it shows down my PC.

Good luck!
 
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We use Carbonite because DH listens to Rush and got 2 free months with the yearly subscription (which I think was only $55/year).

We have LOVED it. We got it because my computer was having problems (USB/card reader) and before we sent it in to be fixed we wanted to make sure everything was backed up since we hadn't backed it up in about 7 months (scary, I know). The initial backup took about a month to 6 weeks, including all of our music, photos, scrap, documents, etc. I think the way Carbonite works (or at least the way DH set it up) is that it saves personal files, but not programs or anything. Since we have all of the cds for our programs, that wasn't a problem.

When we did send in my computer, we had full access to all of our files online. If I needed a document I just had to log on and I could get it. It would be a pain for scrapping, but worked perfectly for finishing up school.

The restore process is a little confusing for us (and we're using it for the 2nd time now), but only because it acts like there is no progress, however we have the files on the computer and then randomly it goes from 0% finished to 100%. The best part is that everything is exactly how it was before the computer was formatted. The only thing I had to do was download firefox with it's addons (my ff profile was restored though) and then itunes after installing our programs. Our restore took about 2 weeks last time. This time it'll be shorter because we were able to do some transferring from the old computer to the new one (they sent us a new one because they couldn't fix the problem).

Carbonite is always working in the background. We hardly notice any lag (and we have pretty slow internet), and if we need more bandwidth to watch something online, we can just lower the priority of Carbonite for an hour or two. The only time that we've noticed lag was during the initial backup. Otherwise our computer is always at least 99% backed up (unless I just downloaded a bunch of scrap goodies).
 
I've tried both and found that Carbonite didn't back up EHDs -- maybe that's changed, though. And since I have an ancient computer with only a 50 GB HD, an EHD is a necessity! Mozy took forever, and my first EHD actually failed WHILE I was backing up to Mozy! How's that for ironic? Since then, I don't like leaving my EHDs on for hours at a time to back up. Instead, I mirror two EHDs once a month and I keep the second off-site in case of fire or theft, and I also back up all my photos to Flickr.
 
I also don't trust EHD's. I don't have one, I have a 2nd internal hard drive that I use as a back up, because I think they are less prone to problems than externals. Now if I have a computer or hard drive problem I'm covered.

That said, I'm still quite worried about a fire and loosing all my photos so I also use Carbonite.

We actually had lightening strike a tree nearby yesterday afternoon and start a fire. Had I not been outside & noticed the smoking immediately after the strike I'm not sure I would be sitting in my house today, as the elderly neighbors weren't even aware their backyard was starting on fire.
 
Kara said:
I've tried both and found that Carbonite didn't back up EHDs -- maybe that's changed, though. And since I have an ancient computer with only a 50 GB HD, an EHD is a necessity! Mozy took forever, and my first EHD actually failed WHILE I was backing up to Mozy! How's that for ironic? Since then, I don't like leaving my EHDs on for hours at a time to back up. Instead, I mirror two EHDs once a month and I keep the second off-site in case of fire or theft, and I also back up all my photos to Flickr.
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A girlfriend sent me a referral for Carbonite, but it doesn't back up EHD's...all my Digi stuff and pics are on my EHD. My C: drive is too full to take the files. Does Mozy back up from an EHD? Maybe I should just get another EHD :confused:
 
RatherBScrappin said:
A girlfriend sent me a referral for Carbonite, but it doesn't back up EHD's...all my Digi stuff and pics are on my EHD. My C: drive is too full to take the files. Does Mozy back up from an EHD? Maybe I should just get another EHD :confused:
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yep, mozy will back up EHDs.
 
another Mozy user.

I will say this, if you use Mozy, don't change the name of your computer. That really messed some stuff up. But I had to change it because our x-box thought it was my old computer and then said it couldn't find it.

But despite that, I really do like Mozy. They helped me walk through the issue to get stuff rebacked up. And I think it only did the new stuff so it took less than a week. But my first back-up took over a month!

I have one EHD and 4 IHD's. I suggest internal drives because the failure rate is lower. I built my computer such that I could accomodate up to 6 internal drives. And there really isn't a reason for EHD's unless you don't have the space in your case or you need it to be portable. If you have multiple computers in your house, you can share the drives out.
 
Am I the only one whose internet provider has upload limits that makes using Mozy impossible? :( We have satellite internet and shortly after I subscribed to Mozy my internet got super super slow, would only load partial pages, etc. Turns out I'd hit my upload limit for the month and I was lucky to have anything. *sigh* They fixed it for me but basically said that I just wouldn't be able to do an online backup. WTF??? Is there any way to get around this? I can't switch providers because we're in the middle of nowhere and they're the only thing we can get other than dial-up. :( Any other ideas other than DVD's or EHD's?
 
That sucks Heather. I know we have a limit with our internet providers, but since Jordan won't let me do online backup, I don't worry about it much. Your only options are DVD's and EHD's then. Do you have a relative that would let you store a second EHD at their house in case of catastrophe at yours? That's why I keep my second one here at work. God forbid some natural disaster happens (knock on wood) that takes out my work and my house (which are 45 minutes away from each other) then I'll just have to take my lumps.

I know there are lots of horror stories out there about EHD's, but they aren't all bad. My main one is a 250gb that I've had for going on 4 years, I travel with it (so it gets bumped around) and I haven't so much as had a hiccup with it. When it dies, it dies, it will have served me well, lol. I backup my photos to DVD quarterly, and make 2 copies of them as well. 1 for home and 1 for work.
 
So, with Mozy, does it delete your files if you have removed them from your HD after a period of time? I've heard that it does.
 
Yes, if you delete it from your HD or EHD it gets deleted from Mozy. It's not permanent storage, it's literally just a backup of what you have.
 
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