Free server backup
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Mozy (www.mozy.com) is a free backup service that uses viral marketing rather well. In exchange for a free 2GB account you have to accept a regular email newsletter with the kind of down-to-earth ‘I’m your mate’ chumvertising that you get on the side of an Innocent smoothie bottle, but if you pimp the service to a friend who signs up for their own 2GB account, you both get an extra 256MB of space free (and you can keep doing that until you run out of friends with common sense).
2GB isn’t enough for any kind of full backup, but you can point it at key files and get an off-site backup that you can restore on any PC via the Mozy website. You can retrieve individual files or the whole bundle; a friend of mine has already used it to recover her dissertation after some over-enthusiastic spring cleaning.
It’s really quite painless. Once you pick the files or file types you want, backup is automatic. Mozy runs as a service - and here’s where it’s handy for a server - whether anyone is logged in to the PC or not. The first backup takes a long time because the files are compressed, encrypted (with your own passphrase if you prefer, a random key stored with your account if you don’t want to keep track of a passphrase) and trickle uploaded. Differential backups are much faster as long as the files haven’t changed too much. The main drawback with Mozy is that it can’t yet backup a mapped drive or a UNC path, but you can get round that by running it on the server.
Obviously your server already has a full backup solution and you test the restore path regularly. Key data goes onto tape, or a NAS box, or optical disk, and you have offsite arrangements. Everyone protects their important data, right?
Back in the real world, if you don’t have a backup solution already, online services are worth considering and for an SME the $4.95 a month Mozy charges for 30GB is quite reasonable. Even if your server is fully backed up, putting a handful of key documents and configuration files on the free Mozy service is a useful belt-and-braces option because restoring is so simple. It’s also a handy way to share files between PCs without having to remember to update a USB stick every time you edit them.
Mary Branscombe
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Loading ...Comment by a - December 8, 2007 on 7:58 pm
The statement: “can restore on any PC” needs explanation. The “any” word.
Comment by Mary Branscombe - December 9, 2007 on 5:17 pm
Any PC means any PC with an Internet connection so you can get to the Mozy Web site. You need your account details too, but I presume that’s a given 
You don’t need a Mozy client, it doesn’t have to be the same OS etc - not quite sure what other definition of ‘any’ you’re wondering about.
Mozy is now owned by EMC, BTW.
M
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