[Macworld]

Post your comments for Which online backup service is right for you? here

[JacobTaylor]

There are a few critical topics that you article did not cover. In addition to the user interface for the backup software, it is important that the backups be reliable, the data is protected, and the restore works. I have been using Mozy for months. My backups appeared to be running regularly and I had regular Growl messages saying "13 files were sent"... recently, I found out that the service was ~5 GB behind and had not completed a backup in about two months. It was posting growl messages when it gave up. After a lot of digging, it turns out that network transfers were just crippled. Presumably this is on their server side. Their support said that the backups for Macs were slow as they roll out new software. They did not know if the software was complete yet but I should just wait. Based on my calculations, with my network connection, it should have taken about 15 minutes to transfer the whole backlog. I am currently testing out Carbonite, which transferred more than that in the next few hours. I am very curious to see what kind of rates DropBox (paid but not used for backup) and JungleDisk can sustain.

Backup should be about far more than just price. When I went to retrieve a file from Mozy and found out it had never been backed up, I was reminded of this fact. A security solution that fails quietly has no place in my portfolio.

Jacob

[mwreader]

It would be good to know which ones encrypt your data for storage. For instance, I chose JungleDisk because it encrypts my data where it's stored so if JungleDisk were to get hacked or an employee goes rogue, my data is safe.

Data encryption is the must have feature especially, in my opinion, when recommending these types of services, especially for small business.

[jdb8167]

I've tried both Mozy and Crashplan and both had a problem that I found to be a deal breaker. They both stay resident in memory when I turned them off.

For Crashplan this amounted to a steady 2% CPU usage and too much memory being used. Mozy was worse in that it seemed to spike my CPU every few seconds disrupting Eye TV Connect software from transmitting smoothly to my iPad.

Crashplan is written in Java which is a big reason why even at idle it is a pig. Mozy is native but apparently still does some sort of processing while set to off.

There appeared to be no convenient way to force these applications to really turn off when I wanted them off. To remove them from memory I had to uninstall them. This is unacceptable to me.

[funkyjim]

I tried out Mozy and it completely corrupted my hard drive. To make a long story short, there was a problem with the startup item which caused my Macbook to not be able to boot, or boot so slowly as to render it useless. I took it in to both the Genius Bar and called Mozy for support, but after countless hours trying to save the disk, I had to reformat it, loosing all the data. However, this was after Mozy had already backed up the drive so I was able to retrieve all the backed up files from Mozy's online client without a hassle. But I wouldn't have had to do all that were it not for Mozy in the first place.

I am currently trying out Carbonite, which has and easy to use client, backs up quickly, has an iPhone app, and seems to work well in general. The only problem for me is that I have used special characters in file and folder names (yeah, yeah, I know) such as apostrophes (') which make all those files and folders unreachable via web browser retrieval, which has never been a problem for me in any other application until now. Also, they have a lot of services that are PC only and state "Mac Coming Soon!", which in my experience can be an indefinite thing.

Thanks to this article I will probably try CrashPlan next. I'm not too hip on the whole "written in Java" thing, but if it works well, it works well.

[DVDwizard]

mwreader, on 22 December 2010 - 08:34 AM, said:

It would be good to know which ones encrypt your data for storage. For instance, I chose JungleDisk because it encrypts my data where it's stored so if JungleDisk were to get hacked or an employee goes rogue, my data is safe.

FYI, CrashPlan offers three levels of encryption, up to 448bit. And you can choose three levels of key security as well.

Mike (from Code 42 Software)

[Eric72]

I don't trust off site back up services. To many variables to consider that is out of your control. Such as, reliability. Most services require you to sign off on agreements of "not responsible for...". Security. Even if they are encrypted from others, how do you know they aren't being misused by the back up company themselves. Your paying for something you can do yourself for free, buying extra drives is still cheaper in the long run. Every time you do a back up over the internet, you are using up your bandwidth. Which is added cost to you, and slows down your internet connection.

I have 3TB worth of drives to do my back up. That's almost double the amount space that my data is taking up on my main drives. So no worries about space. I use Retrospect for all my scheduled backups, and I can control how, when and what it backs up. So except for the monthly or bi-monthly maintenance, I don't have to worry about it. My data remains completely private, and secure. I'm not a number in some companies database. I also have my system set up that I can access my files remotely from any computer. So I always have access to my files.

[RobLewis]

What kind of a statement is this?

"You can also customize how long JungleDisk keeps older versions of your files—though you must configure that manually"

Gee, I find that when I customize something, I virtually always have to do it manually. Very few apps seem to be able to read my mind, unfortunately.

I've had good luck with JungleDisk for both backup and syncing multiple machines, and though its UI may not be the greatest, it would appear to be the winner in overall flexibility. Plus they have a free iOS app that can retrieve your files.

[cpoff]

I moved a few suggestions about other apps over to a thread in Macworld Feedback. So if you want to comment on online backup solutions that were not mentioned in this article, you can do so over there.

[mellowJohnny]

Another option ius what we do in Enterprise, namely physical off-site storeage. Typically we back up things on our servers the same way Time Machine does (incrementals plus fulls), but at a certain poiint the tapes get moved off-site for the same reasons you want cloud storage: fire, water, theft, etc.

I've started doing full back ups weekly and storing it "off-site" at my father in law's house. Not perfect, but something to consider too. And "free"...

[Howmanoid]

I wrestled with Mozy for nearly a year trying to get it to backup everything they claimed they would. Failure. After months of hassle I had the most ridiculous exchange with their support folks and decided that they didn't have a clue. I've been with BackBlaze ever since and couldn't be happier! Same price, just works, no brainer.

[jennyem56]

I've been a Mozy customer for about 6 months. The first few months had slow backup speeds, but at least it backed up. Then in November they issued the first of 2 updates that have completely borked my backups and Mozy support has been non-existent. Their message boards are alive with comments, but I haven't seen anything else posted online about this problem. I would not recommend a Mac user use Mozy. They say an update is coming in January,...*sigh*.

I've been seriously thinking about switching, so this article is very interesting to me.

[Quix]

Mozy was extremely flakey for me. One day it would tell me I was fully backed up, the next day it was starting a 130 GB backup. What???

Backblaze has been a much better option for me. I particularly like the option of being able to restore individual files via the Backblaze website, something Mozy did not offer at the time I used it (I don't know if they offer this now).

The individual file access is a huge advantage to me.

[hillstones]

Don't forget...when these companies all go out of business, your backups are history. All they have to do is pull the plug one day. Hard drives are inexpensive. It is pretty easy to have multiple backups and not have to worry about some "cloud" that can easily blow away with your data.