Mozy

In my ongoing quest for the perfect way to back up my personal data I have tweaked the setup yet again. Most of what I wrote nearly three years ago (How to Build a State of the Art Backup System for Your Personal Data) still stands, so I will focus on off-site cloud backup in this article.

My familiy and me generate data all the time, mostly pictures and videos. I store it all on a PC in my small home network. That PC acts as a file server and, as all servers, needs to be backed up. The mere thought of losing all that information gives me the creeps. After initially copying all data to an external USB drive using an advanced rsync algorithm I switched to a more secure method - at least, that was my plan. Storing data offsite on the internet provides the benefit of not losing priceless photographs and videos when desaster strikes your home. Reading about the online backup service mozy.com, which offers unlimited storage capacity for a mere $ 4.95 per month, I signed up immediately and underwent the painful procedure of uploading roughly 180 GB during several months to mozy. That went relatively well, the client software had only small problems now and then. When all my files were uploaded, I was content. Until I decided to upgrade the hard drive of my home “server” hosting all my data.