My questions were:
Do you back up my data to tape? How often?
Do you mirror my data to another data center? How often?
Do you use RAID 5 or RAID 6? (Raid 6 is important when using SATA disks)

They wouldn’t answer any of them, they tried to dance around them but I wasn’t buying it.

Another question about restores which I didn’t ask but should have…

Does Mozy Throttle Bandwidth for restores and what Bandwidth do they have available to Mozy at the data center (Not the entire B/W of the Data Center, but what MOZY has available)

Sorry to hear of your troubles.

Unfortunately, I had long given up on Mozy online backup for the Mac. My current backup set up is to use TimeMachine to back up to a TimeCapsule and then use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a image of my entire drive on an external Firewire drive.

Since I have several Macs that I am backing up, I now have a Drobo on order.

Did you send your email inquiry to their Mac Support (macs…@mozy.com)? I found that in the past their Mac Support was much more responsive, but that was before EMC took over.

Any ideas?

There support people won’t even respond.

I recently installed Mac OS 10.5 Leopard, and had a few problems with Mozy (v0.8.0.0). The backup daemon doesn’t start automatically, but if I run it from the command line, then everything works fine. Still haven’t traced down the problem and haven’t seen any mention of it elsewhere.

I’ve been using Mozy for awhile, maybe two months, maybe three. My wife has two machines at work on her account (PC) and I’ve been using it on my MacBook at home. All three machines are paid accounts. Support has been fairly responsive via email.

I started using Mozy at home right after I upgraded to Leopard. My most recent issue was that Mozy just stopped making backups. It popped up an alert to let me know that it had not backed up in seven days. I thought, “So? Do a backup!” I tried to manually start one and it did nothing. The status window just sat there.

So I attempted to uninstall and reinstall following their online directions to save my configuration file. And that is where I ran into a Catch22. When you install Mozy, it creates its directories and starts up a process, even before you configure it. That process uses the state.db file. So you can’t copy your old state.db file over to that directory because the file is in use. Thus, you can’t actually reinstall Mozy and USE your old configuration file! You can save it, just not use it, which is very frustrating.

So I did a whole new setup and configuration, hoping that Mozy would be smart enough to compare my files with the ones on the server. Nope. It started a whole new backup, which will take at least another five hours according to the status window. It just started over as if my existing backup wasn’t there!

I think it is this last round of problems that is causing me to look for other solutions, including my wife’s backups at work. It works most of the time but when it doesn’t the hassle factor just isn’t worth even $5/month

I recently (on the weekend) upgraded my Mac to Mac OS 10.5. So I want to make sure everything are stable before introducing yet another variable onto my Mac.

Please do feel free to try this latest version [v0.8.0.0 (764)] out. I am sure everyone will appreciate it, if you can share your findings here.

My reason for wanting to use Mozy was for the off site storage over the internet but I just don’t see that as a viable alternative anymore and to be honest the whole experience has put me off trying with other companies because it just takes too long to upload a large amount of data and if the system becomes unreliable you are back to square one, so I still feel a fireproof safe with cheap SATA drives is the way forward for me personally. Systems like Mozy can work if you only need to backup a few gigs but as your needs increase it just doesn’t work unless you have a super fast upload connection and unlimited bandwidth. Try uploading 100 gigs of data and see how long it takes.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

I too have found that Mozy Technical Support (macs…@mozy.com) had been unresponsive. This is even with my direct Mac Support contact (Ben).

It all happened about the same time that Berkeley Data Systems, the provider of the Mozy service, was purchased by EMC Corporation.

May be these people are no longer there.

As for the latest version of Mozy for Mac. It is horrible. Its functionality seem to had gone backwards and most of my files; the ones from Apple Mail had not been backed up for weeks. Eventually I uninstalled Mozy for Mac all together.

I normally uninstall Mozy when I finds out the version I had does not work. I would report all my findings here and to Mozy Mac Technical Support, but this time around they did not reply as you had pointed out.

So, I would recommend everyone to not rely on Mozy and choose the many other options for backup on your Mac.

I have to reiterate, an online backup is just one of the pieces of a backup strategy. It should not be your only backup means.

With the release of Leopard (Mac OS 10.5), Apple has made one method of backup much simply for the general user. For those who will or has upgraded to Mac OS 10.5, I suggest you take advantage of TimeMachine. Then look into software like SuperDupper as the other means of backing up your data/system.

I will have an article about backup archiving in the near future.

Its a great idea but in practice its just cost me a lot of wasted time. I think a fireproof safe with large sata drives probably makes more sense.

You may want to take a look at a comment left by one of the Macintosh developer (Dan Reese) from Mozy.

http://www.vinko.com/php/blog/2007/08/28/problem-with-mozy-august-28-update/#comment-972

They are now very responsive to issues I come across and appear to be working hard to nail all existing bugs.

I do agree that Mozy support quality is not consistent, as proven by the feedbacks from other users and my own. I do reiterate that everyone should be forwarding all Mozy for Mac technical issues to macs…@mozy.com rather than the standard Mozy support as stated on their site.

For some reason I’ve been getting Backend errors for about 2 weeks now, I think I’m just about giving up on it.

Thank you for the tip about download managers. How do you recommend downloading a 30+ GB file from a website without it being interrupted or being resumable if it is interrupted? I tried three or four times without a download manager (just directly from Firefox) and it got interrupted part of the way through each time.

Then, the download manager got it to 100% finished, but when I went to mount the DMG file, I got an error message saying that there was an invalid checksum. So I went to the Mozy site to try downloading it again and since it had reached 100%, it wasn’t available for download again.

I send this message to Mozy:

Hi Mozy,

After several unsuccessful download attempts, I finally got this download finished, but when I try to mount the image, I get the following message:

Warning

The following disk images failed to mount

Image: mozy_2007_07_31_09_22_XXXXXX 00-XX-XX.dmg
Reason: invalid checksum

The file doesn’t appear to be available for download again. Can you make it so that I can download it again and not wait another 5 days for it to build again?

Thank you,

Giovanni

I wrote that email last night and haven’t received a reply from them today. We’ll see what comes.

Regarding your recommendation of offline backups, that is probably advisable for most people out there, but I’m going to be travelling for months at a time in the near future, so I need to rely exclusively on online backups. Carrying extra hard drives or DVDs around won’t be practical. That’s why I’m going to try the suggestion from the Addison Road blog on how to back up to a Dreamhost account using SuperDuper!. I have a Dreamhost account with plenty of storage and bandwidth and SuperDuper! was so highly rated on Lifehacker, that I’m happy to give it a shot.

I tried to include the link to the Addison Road blog at the end of my last post, but it didn’t come through. I’m not sure if I made an error in creating the link or if you have a policy about external links that I’m not aware of. In case it was the former, here is the URL:

http://addisonrd.com/WordPress/2007/03/09/how-to-backup-your-mac-to-a-dreamhost-server-part-1-of-2/

I think it might be relevant to other people who are trying to use Mozy for the same thing I am.

Thank you again for the suggestions, Vinko.

[Correction] The Addison Road blog tutorial is how to backup your Mac to a DreamHost server. It does not use SuperDuper!. I scanned the article before posting and misread the part where he mentions SuperDuper!.

Giovanni

Thank you for your contribution to the discussion and the state of Mozy backup.

I had yet to try their latest version (0.6.0.2) of Mozy backup for the Mac. From my conversation with Mozy Support, they tell me that there is a newer version coming for the week of August 6th.

One warning about these so call “download managers”, especially “Speed Downoad”. They corrupt your Mac OS X and causes more problems then you want.

My recommendation is to NOT use these software, particularly “Speed Download”.

In case you do not know, in the future you should send your emails to “macs…@mozy.com” for any Mozy issues related to the Macintosh version and Mac OS X.

Please do contribute again after you had tried restoring the backup from Mozy.

BTW: it is a good practice to use services like Mozy as periodic backups of the daily changed items, but still have an offline backup schedule for weekly and/or monthly backups; depending on how often these data changes.

PS: for the weekly and monthly backups it is always a good practice to make a complete duplicate of your internal hard drive. You can use software like “SuperDuper!“.

I’ve been using this software for a few weeks. Although I didn’t have any issues getting it to run, I did have occasion to restore a backup. Here’s what’s happened so far…

First, a little background. When I was trying to install Windows XP via Boot Camp, the Windows disk erased my OS X partition. (A mostly irrelevant story. The part that is relevant is that it ended up with Apple replacing my hard drive. They had my computer from a Friday afternoon to the following Monday morning.)

After getting the computer back from the Apple Store, I logged in to Mozy to restore the most recent backup. When I initiated the process of restoring the backup, the Mozy site told me I would receive an email when the backup was ready for download.

Granted, the backup size was 30 GB, so I would expect it would take a little on the longer side. But Mozy’s site gives no indication of what to expect with wait times. Also, if it had been on another site, the download wouldn’t need to be “prepared”. I could just download it when I need it.

At this writing, Mozy’s site says nothing to indicate that there is a preparation time in addition to the download time.

After four days of waiting for the email, I wrote Mozy the following:

Hello Mozy,

I recently had a hard drive crash. I logged in to the Mozy site on July 31 to restore my most recent back up. I still haven’t received the email letting me know that the restore is finished.

Is this normal that it would take over 4 days to recover a backup? If so, it may be advisable to make this absolutely clear to your customers. If I had known backup restores were time consuming, I could have started the restore process immediately when I took my computer crashed. The Apple Store had the computer for 3 days. I started the restore when I got the computer back, thinking it would restore the files as fast as they could download. Now I’m over 7 days without access to my files. If I had known to start the backup restore immediately when the computer crashed, that would have been 3 days less without my files.

Also, there is no indication on the Restore Files page as to how long the restore will take. So I’m left in limbo, which isn’t acceptable for my work. And, unless there is a possibility that I’ll be able to do immediate backup restores in the future, I’ll be searching for another backup solution.

Please let me know how long I should expect the backup restore to take. Also, please let me know what Mozy is doing (if anything) to resolve this issue of long wait times.

Thank you,

Giovanni

Here’s the response I received from Mozy:

Sorry for the trouble. Usually restore files do not take long to build. The main 2 factors are the size of the restore, and the number of requests at the time. I checked on the status of your restore, and it is about 90% built.

Thanks,
Dallas

I finally got the email that Mozy finished preparing the restore the following day, August 4, at 9:06 PM. After the download getting interrupted several times in Firefox, I decided to try it with a download manager I got today (Speed Download). There’s about an hour and a half left in my download as I write this. We’ll see how it goes.

I think next I’m going to try the suggestion on .

Any thoughts?

Thank you for your comment, but since you had not try it yourself. You did not know that the initial version of Mozy that they released to the public (as Beta) and even the latest (0.4.1.4) version (4th since) did not work.

This means that the application does not even allow a user to try the software. The initial version did not allow the user to login to Mozy.

I had corresponded with Technical Support at Mozy through out these versions and tested them as soon as each of them came out.

The reason I have to make this public is because many people in the Mac community is promoting the software/service due to advertising buy by Mozy. So it is my desire to ensure that all Mac users know that this software is not ready for the public and definitely do not deserve the “Beta” status that Mozy had given it.

In typical Macintosh software quality standard this software would be classify as “Alpha” and would be in a closed testing only.

Plus my opinions are also based on the attitude of the company; as represented by their Technical Support representatives’ responds to my feedback to their software, are not the typical Macintosh software company quality and standards.

I’m about to try it out myself, and expect to find things not working well here and there. The right thing to do if you are a BETA-tester is to try to help the developer improve the product, not be so negative in public. This kind of response is what keeps developers from having open beta-testing.

Thank you for sharing your findings. I believe Mozy may have realized this also, that may be why they tell me that a new version will be available later this week that will soft the problem I am encountering.

Should I forward your findings to them?

It seems the mozy client needs the user to have admin rights. Which is not good… the problems went away after promoting my user account to be admin.