Mozy versus Carbonite: Automated Backup Services

I now have experience using both Mozy (MozyPro) and Carbonite for backup of files on computers. The winner seems clear to me: Carbonite.

Both services install software that backup your files to their server in the background when you are connected to the Internet. This gives you an archive that you can access from anywhere should your disk crash or computer be lost or stolen. But there are some important differences. Carbonite's interface makes it easy to pick which folders or files are backed up, and it's easy to tell if they have been backed up or are still waiting to be archived. The icons of folder and files are modified with a little circle in the lower lefthand corner. Green means it's been archived, yellow means it's waiting. Nice. Mozy, on the other hand, can give you a false sense of security. There's no easy way to know that a file has been backed up. I thought my files were backed up, but then I got a strange dialog box pop up telling me that no backup had been done for over five days. The settings indicated that it should have been done automatically. I contacted technical support - only reachable via email. A day later, I got a request for more information. They wanted to see a log file that I didn't know existed. When I looked at the log file, I could see that Mozy had quit the backup because the Internet connection was interrupted during backup. I had a "CancelError2" message,. Searching their Website, I found that this was an easy problem to fix: just set up your computer so it never goes into standby mode to keep the Internet connection up continually during the backup - a process that can take several days for the first backup. That's crazy. I travel from home to work to other places with my computer every day, Open, close, with wireless acceess, without - over and over. If a backup can't stop and restart flexibly, then it's no good, in my opinion. Carbonite had no trouble with this. I can't fathom why Mozy seems to require uninterrupted Internet access for days.

This may not be normal and perhaps I've got something wrong in my setup. It's hard to know, because Mozy's tech support is so slow. I contacted them on Monday morning. A day later I had email asking for my log file. I sent that at 7:25 am on Tuesday. Simple questions on other topics I asked on Monday remained unanswered. Now it's Thursday and I still haven't heard back (OK - today is a holiday, but yesterday wasn't And it's a holiday only in the US - probably not where the tech support is located. And even if they are in the US, the second inquiry went unanswered for 40 hours before the holiday began.)

Another disconcerting aspect of Mozy is the lack of security. The default for file backup is to use a "default key" for data encryption. What they don't tell you when you accept their default is that use of this key means that other can access your files. Which others? Well, your employer, for one, if your service is being offered by your employer, as mine is. It's like backing up your files without encryption at all. CRAZY! If you want to use your own encryption key, you have to restart the slow backup process (requires days - and apparently you can't allow Internet access to be interrupted during this process, though I'm still not sure), though it's not clear how - I'm still waiting for technical support to explain that process. Couldn't find details in their online help and nothing seems obvious in the very clunky user interface. 

With Carbonite I had one question that was answered promptly - not sure how long it was, but it was fast enough to seem like good support.  Carbonite installation was easy (Mozy had glitches, as I recall). And the interface makes it simple and painless to control your backup. Temporary interruption of Internet access doesn't stymie Carbonite - it's well behaved. 

A nice thing about Carbonite is that you can try it free for a couple weeks (I got it for 30 days free by using Kim Komando's promotional code - listen to the show, or guess what 3-letter code it might be) - and you don't have to enter a credit card number to do that. Give it a try. Cost for a year is $50 - a steal for the piece of mind you'll get.  

tags: internet  backup  services  

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