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 Thursday, January 24, 2008

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is Mozy dead?

Long ago I wrote about how I had outsourced my online backup to Carbonite. Things were going great till one day I updated the meta data in my Windows Media Library of music and that resulted in modifications to 100 GB of data.

Well imagine my horror when I was noticing that my Internet connection would be held hostage for the next few weeks as Carbonite proceeded to re-upload my music collection.

That was when I switched to Mozy. I have been very happy with Mozy as they offered the following benefits over Carbonite:

  • Block Level file backups (only changed portions of the file are uploaded, so if you modify meta data in a file, only a small amount of the file is uploaded.
  • Up to 30 days of change history for a file
  • Better shell integration
  • Better behaved client application

Well, that was until a week ago. I received an email from Mozy that I would have to upgrade to the latest version of their software. So I did that. That was when it stopped working and I got some cryptic message that oem.dll could not be loaded. So I did what any geek would do:

  1. re-install
  2. uninstall
  3. install (this resulted in me having to start from scratch with my settings and whatnot)

but now I was left with a error code "AccountError4" that took me to a support page that said "Email support@mozy.com".

Well I did that on Monday, and again on Wednesday. I have not heard back at all.

Now normally this would be no big deal, except, what if something really bad happened?

Anyway, getting tired of waiting I took the drastic measure of deleing my machine from Mozy and starting over thinking this would fix things quickly. Normally when you delete a machine account and then backup right a way, Mozy quickly scans your drive, then looks at the info that is backed up and realizes it's already there.

Not this time, for some reason it's starting from scratch backing up all my data as if it were not on the server. This will take a few weeks of course.

So, this leaves me not so happy about the situation. Since I switched to Mozy, Carbonite has added Block level backup. This was a big deal so I'm thinking of switching back to Carbonite. At least when I was using them their support was top-notch.

EMC's acquisition of Mozy has not made things much better IMHO.

Software
Posted Friday, January 25, 2008    Permalink    Comments [22]  View blog reactions

 

Thursday, January 24, 2008 8:52:36 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
I think JungleDisk is a better model for backups. The storage is Amazon S3 (for which you have to signup and pay yourself, thus keeping control with you) and you get a downloadable software that you pay once and keep forever (with free upgrades). This again leaves you in control even if the company goes away. The data does not go through their servers, it goes directly to S3. They have additional paid-services, called JungleDisk Plus, for some features that require a server to be maintained by them. Ofcourse, this is optional.

Without knowing how long Mozy or other such companies are going to be around and supported I think it would be a risk to give up control of your data. This is no different from a webmail provider that wont give a POP3 access to download your mail. You are a hostage.

The problem to worry about is not the smartness of the software uploading changed files and block-level updates, but what if the download and restore are compromised? Imagine your disk has crashed and you are at the mercy of support@mozy.com to restore anything.
Gowri Sivaprasad
Thursday, January 24, 2008 9:09:27 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
For me the Mozy client upgrade went smoothly. I wonder if Carbonite supports private encryption keys already? At least for me that was the reason for selecting Mozy in the first place.
Lasse
Thursday, January 24, 2008 9:22:28 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Fortunately I had no problem with the upgrade. However, prior to the upgrade I was experience intermittent problems that would cause me to have to stop and restart the mozy service. I tried the suggestions in the support knowledge base, but when that didn't work I emailed support, advising them of the steps I took. Amazingly they emailed me a recommendation that pointed to the same support article I originally used. Not very good support, indeed.
John Walker
Thursday, January 24, 2008 10:21:36 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
I had a few days of errors, too, and I believe they had several updates quickly following each other. First I thought the message to update was just an error, since I already updated, but then I noticed a slight difference in version numbers. Finally, I am on 1.8.6.21 and it's wroking again.
Zoli Erdos
Friday, January 25, 2008 3:11:01 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Did you try the live help option on the mozy site? I got the answer I wanted within a couple of minutes, chatting direct to the support team.

The main problem I'm having with Mozy is the lack of network drive support. I just bought a nas box to move some drives out of the main box, and it wont see them :(
Matt
Friday, January 25, 2008 4:02:59 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
I think you should try with www.docoom.com. It's cheaper than Mozy and it is also easier. I began with Mozy but after having several problems, I decided to move on to Docoom.
Rita
Friday, January 25, 2008 8:26:23 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Latest Mozy upgrade worked fine for me.
Mike
Friday, January 25, 2008 8:38:38 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Rita, I'm confused. I just checked out Docoom and it looks way more expensive than Mozy. Their cheapest plan is basically $5/month and you only get 10 GB of backup while Mozy charges the same amount for unlimited space.

I haven't had any problems with Mozy and I certainly don't want to give up having a private key.
Keen
Friday, January 25, 2008 1:18:44 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
dang that sucks... i feel you pain. ive been using mozy for about 6 months and i havent had any problems with them and the upgrade ran smoothly for me. maybe u should call them and ask one of their techs to tell you what's up.
Computer Backup
Friday, January 25, 2008 11:43:35 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
The deletion of the machine and readding it would normally realize all the files are already there, but I noticed when I did that recently my network snitch (app firewall stuff) showed a new hostname. I bet you got moved to another datacenter, like I did. It's hard to store much petabytes of user crap, so I don't hold it against em for that.
Kevin
Saturday, January 26, 2008 8:12:04 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
I work for EMC, and I can tell you Mozy isn't dead. We are getting internal emails about the service and it is going forward. EMC wanted an offering in the personal market and Mozy going away would be counter productive after just buying them.

However, I can see the pain in the support side. Usually after an aquistion it takes 6 months or more to hire more support, train them, integrate into the corporate culture. If you are experiencing support problems, my guess is that it is from the "legacy" Mozy, not EMC. Next year, it will be an EMC issue, but I doubt we have had time to effect much change by now.
Dave
Sunday, January 27, 2008 9:12:36 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Hi, I'm Carbonite's CEO. In response to "Is Mozy dead?", Carbonite does block level incremental backup, so whatever you did to your metadata would not result in backing up the whole files again, just an part that is changed. Second, Carbonite is very good about not getting in your way when it is backing up -- it senses that you are using your bandwidth for other things.

Carbonite's newest release does support private encryption keys, versioning, scheduling, and a lot of other new features.

Dave Friend
CEO, Carbonite, Inc.
Carbonite Online Backup
David Friend
Monday, January 28, 2008 8:59:21 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Hello all,

For *many* users, the all-you-can-eat backup plans are probably not the way to go. Under such a system, the 80/20 rule kicks in.

In other words, 20% of the users hog 80% of the bandwidth, resources, etc. My advice is to find a backup service with great software and great data centers that is reasonably prices such as



***I not only use the service, I work there.
Michael Reagan
Monday, January 28, 2008 9:00:21 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
www.filebackup.net is the link
Michael Reagan
Monday, January 28, 2008 9:47:41 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
I've churned through all the different options and always come back to Mozy. Can't beat the price and I haven't had any issues in the 10 months I've used them. It's saved me once or twice with its ability to version stuff over the past 30 days, and I always know there's a complete backup located offsite.

I do know that the one horrible thing is that when you repave your machine (which I do every half year or so), you have to delete all your data online in order to have the "new" machine recognized. So in the meantime, while all 60+GB is uploading, there's no current backup.
Ted Jardine
Thursday, January 31, 2008 9:36:39 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Mozy should be blamed for poor customer support, but the rest of this situation is entirely your fault.

James
Thursday, January 31, 2008 9:45:28 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Actually, they should be blamed for a botched client upgrade as well, which is the reason I am in this mess.
Omar Shahine
Thursday, January 31, 2008 7:19:53 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Regarding the need to re-upload all files following a repave, Mozy support had this to say:

I am sorry to say that yes you will still have to upload all of your data. The reason that Mozy wasn't always like that is because once upon a time there was a registry hack were you could just keep the same computer online and replace the reg files from before the repave, and we would recognize it as the same machine. That has since been fixed and this is how most of our users like it, I apologize for the inconvenience this is causing.

Best Regards Josh


Bummer. Can't see why "most of our users like it" this way. However, this is my only complaint with Mozy (apart from the amount of time it takes to "reticulate splines"), so I'll live with it.
Ted Jardine
Saturday, February 02, 2008 2:13:41 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
As an update to the above, apparently you can repave a machine and not need to re-upload all files again by following these steps:

1. Make sure you have all files that you need safely on your computer’s hard drive. (You can restore files at http://mozy.com/restore if necessary.) Make sure you do this BEFORE you move on to step two.
2. Log in to your account at https://mozy.com/login.
3. Click the "My Computers" link on the left side under "Account Pages." Find the "Delete" button on the right and delete your computer. (You’re not deleting your account, just the "old" machine associated with your account. Your files are still on our servers, and you’re going to reassociate them to your new machine in just a minute.)
4. Download and install the Mozy client if you haven’t already.
5. Open the configuration menu, and under the "File System" tab, select the files and folders you want to back up. Customize your backup settings and close the configuration menu.
6. Start a backup right away. During this backup, Mozy will reassociate the files on your computer with those already backed up on our server. It will take a few minutes, but not nearly as long as it did during your initial backup.

I had done the above steps intuitively with the exception of not removing my online profile first, and then immediately doing a backup. Each time I had attempted the backup without deleting my online profile first.

Next time won't involve two weeks of re-uploading...apparently. We'll see how it goes.
Ted Jardine
Monday, February 04, 2008 12:51:37 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Hi, docoom is cheaper than Mozy because I have it installed in 3 computers and I only pay once. If I had Mozy, I would have to pay trhice for the same service..
Rita
Thursday, February 07, 2008 6:16:47 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
>> Actually, they should be blamed for a
>> botched client upgrade as well, which
>> is the reason I am in this mess.

The reason you are in this mess is because you didn't wait for support before thinking you were smart enough to fix the problem yourself.
James
Thursday, June 19, 2008 2:46:24 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Bad experience with MOZY: After 6 mos. on Mozy, my computer crashed (Friday afternoon.) Mozy had problems with their site and it wasn't downloading; no customer service available. I NEEDED this info over the weekend. Finally, Sat afternoon I paid someone to retrieve data from my busted hard drive. Finally, mozy e-mailed me on Sun regarding my customer service request. Bottom line: NO REFUND. They didn't deliver what they promised and they don't stand behind their product. I wasted a lot of money. Not good business practice. WILL NEVER USE
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