Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Mozy Backup Service.... Or Should i Say Poor Service

janey said:
Lovely how that's not listed as a requirement anywhere on Mozy's site, except in links to external reviews mentioning it.
Click to expand...

You're absolutely right -- that is really dumb. I would have sworn it was on Mozy's site, but I guess I only remember that from reading external reviews as you say.

I have 41 GB backed up. If i wanted to change to a custom key, do i have to back up all my stuff again? I'd really like to see if the custom key restore works or not on my machine.
 
I recently started using Mozy, and with a custom key. I haven't tried a restore, will give it a shot later.
 
MBHockey said:
You're absolutely right -- that is really dumb. I would have sworn it was on Mozy's site, but I guess I only remember that from reading external reviews as you say.
Click to expand...

Oh, mozy's site did change the Mac FAQ to include editing /etc/hostconfig to re-enable spotlight sometime after my problem, I guess. Of course, without actually telling you what you're doing, just that you should type random commands into Terminal. Nothing along the lines of "Mozy requires Spotlight to work, here is how to enable it...". Just "Make sure you're logged in as an admin and do the following".

I know what they're doing. Not happening. I can live with my own backup solutions.
 
janey said:
I know what they're doing. Not happening. I can live with my own backup solutions.
Click to expand...

Yah, even though it appears to work for me, Eenu's story is pretty amazing. Doesn't give me any confidence they would be there when/if I had problems.

Mozy is a second backup for me. Primary is duplicate local hard drives, plus some DVD burning monthly. I like the idea of offsite storage, just in case, for my pictures, etc. It's been a while since I shopped online services. Sounds like it is time to do that again.
 
I want a custom/private key because if someone else is storing my personal data, i want it encrypted. You never know what might happen...

I would be interested is someone using a custom key were able to backup and restore to a different computer.
 
Mozy works on Mac and XP

Regarding the custom encryption key, I think everyone should use a custom key. You don't make your email visible to all do you? Not that I have any big secrets but in case some hacker gets into their servers I'd like to know my custom encryption key will slow them down :D Easy to copy and paste the key and Mozy gives you option when you choose a custom key to save it as a file to your computer.

I have the latest version of Mozy installed on my WinXP laptop and I have 140GB backed up (took several weeks). The only complaint I have is that they limit your upload speed to 1Mb/s. I just tried a couple of restores via Windows Explorer (Mozy integrated) and it worked flawlessly. Slow though, I'm in Western Canada and I have a 10Mb/s download link and I was getting average speeds of 1-2Mb/s. Hate to do a large restore.

I have the latest version of Mozy installed on my MBP using OS X 10.4.10 and the restore worked flawlessly as well.

Sorry to hear your restores didn't work. One thing I did when I first installed was use their encryption key, later I deleted all data, reinstalled Mozy app and then specified encryption key. if you restore using Mozy app you don't need to retype encryption key. I haven't tried restoring via web and using their decryption utility though.

I'm hoping their customer service delay is temporary and not like Parallels :eek: Mozy has usually responded within a day to my questions. I've found the WinXP client to be extremely stable. The Mac client has never given me problems either but it doesn't have as many features as the Windows client - probably because still in beta.

The only other complaint about Mozy that I have is that if my external hard drives are turned off when backup starts, later when drives are turned back on, it takes a looooong time to recheck all the files to see which ones are not in sync.

PS - if anyone is new to Mozy and wants to give it a try, use my referral code (https://mozy.com/?ref=62CUH1) and we'll both get an upgrade. Thanks.
 
maestrokev said:
Regarding the custom encryption key, I think everyone should use a custom key. You don't make your email visible to all do you? Not that I have any big secrets but in case some hacker gets into their servers I'd like to know my custom encryption key will slow them down :D Easy to copy and paste the key and Mozy gives you option when you choose a custom key to save it as a file to your computer.

I have the latest version of Mozy installed on my WinXP laptop and I have 140GB backed up (took several weeks). The only complaint I have is that they limit your upload speed to 1Mb/s. I just tried a couple of restores via Windows Explorer (Mozy integrated) and it worked flawlessly. Slow though, I'm in Western Canada and I have a 10Mb/s download link and I was getting average speeds of 1-2Mb/s. Hate to do a large restore.

I have the latest version of Mozy installed on my MBP using OS X 10.4.10 and the restore worked flawlessly as well.

Sorry to hear your restores didn't work. One thing I did when I first installed was use their encryption key, later I deleted all data, reinstalled Mozy app and then specified encryption key. if you restore using Mozy app you don't need to retype encryption key. I haven't tried restoring via web and using their decryption utility though.

I'm hoping their customer service delay is temporary and not like Parallels :eek: Mozy has usually responded within a day to my questions. I've found the WinXP client to be extremely stable. The Mac client has never given me problems either but it doesn't have as many features as the Windows client - probably because still in beta.

The only other complaint about Mozy that I have is that if my external hard drives are turned off when backup starts, later when drives are turned back on, it takes a looooong time to recheck all the files to see which ones are not in sync.

PS - if anyone is new to Mozy and wants to give it a try, use my referral code (https://mozy.com/?ref=62CUH1) and we'll both get an upgrade. Thanks.
Click to expand...

yet you haven't tried to restore the mac data with the custom key to confirm this issue :rolleyes:
 
I did a small test and successfully restored about 20MB of files. I have a custom key and did it using the Mozy app so it didn't prompt me to enter my key.
 
jackc said:
I did a small test and successfully restored about 20MB of files. I have a custom key and did it using the Mozy app so it didn't prompt me to enter my key.
Click to expand...

How did you test this? Did you

1) Backup computer A with custom key
2) Restore files to computer B using Mozy tool

This is what I tried on my windows computer and could not get it to work after days of trying. Perhaps Mozy fixed this as last I tried was about 5 months ago...
 
WannaGoMac said:
How did you test this? Did you

1) Backup computer A with custom key
2) Restore files to computer B using Mozy tool

This is what I tried on my windows computer and could not get it to work after days of trying. Perhaps Mozy fixed this as last I tried was about 5 months ago...
Click to expand...

I just tested if I could retrieve the files from their server onto my computer. I have to figure out what I need to do from my bootable external drive. I didn't think I would see the Mozy menu from that drive since it's not installed there (I use SuperDuper to clone), it's not showing any files to restore. I guess I need to reinstall Mozy on that drive?
 
jackc said:
I have a custom key and did it using the Mozy app so it didn't prompt me to enter my key.
Click to expand...

Then that in itself is wrong and a big issue!

If you have used a custom key you should be asked for it when you decrypt the data otherwise your not using a custom key

EDIT: I have had an email from the Vice President of Mozy and have had all my charges refunded which is very good of them (if not fair).
 
eenu said:
Then that in itself is wrong and a big issue!

If you have used a custom key you should be asked for it when you decrypt the data otherwise your not using a custom key
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I expected too
 
jackc said:
I just tested if I could retrieve the files from their server onto my computer. I have to figure out what I need to do from my bootable external drive. I didn't think I would see the Mozy menu from that drive since it's not installed there (I use SuperDuper to clone), it's not showing any files to restore. I guess I need to reinstall Mozy on that drive?
Click to expand...

Ya, that worked fine for me as well. But hardly matters when you are trying to do a catastrophic failure test! :) You need to know it will work when restoring onto a completely new or rebuilt (i.e. new OS install).

You can install OS X to an external drive and then boot off the external to try this test on a "separate computer."
 
Mozy response

Whoa. We clearly messed up. I apologize to David and anyone else who may have had a similar experience with support. Even though the product is in beta, our support is not. This is clearly unacceptable on our part. If anyone is experiencing any issues like David's please contact us at support@mozy.com. There are additional steps we can take to diagnose and remedy any problems. Most of our customers who contact us via our support channels have a very positive experience, and rest assured that we have many Mac users on Mozy running very successfully, including using the private key encryption option.

Vance Checketts
COO & VP of Products
Mozy
 
Vance said:
Whoa. We clearly messed up. I apologize to David and anyone else who may have had a similar experience with support. Even though the product is in beta, our support is not. This is clearly unacceptable on our part. If anyone is experiencing any issues like David's please contact us at support@mozy.com. There are additional steps we can take to diagnose and remedy any problems. Most of our customers who contact us via our support channels have a very positive experience, and rest assured that we have many Mac users on Mozy running very successfully, including using the private key encryption option.

Vance Checketts
COO & VP of Products
Mozy
Click to expand...

Welcome Vance. Do you have any comment about my issue related to restores using Windows and a custom key? I really liked your product but was disappointed that it failed to work and restore my data successfully to a 2nd computer.
 
Vance said:
Whoa. We clearly messed up. I apologize to David and anyone else who may have had a similar experience with support. Even though the product is in beta, our support is not. This is clearly unacceptable on our part. If anyone is experiencing any issues like David's please contact us at support@mozy.com. There are additional steps we can take to diagnose and remedy any problems. Most of our customers who contact us via our support channels have a very positive experience, and rest assured that we have many Mac users on Mozy running very successfully, including using the private key encryption option.

Vance Checketts
COO & VP of Products
Mozy
Click to expand...

Vance thanks for your response and to Tyler who emailed me personally. As i have already said to Tyler i am suspicious that the issue maybe lies with the length or the characters used in the custom key. Personally my password is 15 characters long made up of letters, numbers and symbols. Not that this should be the issue but its the only one i can come up with given there are wide reports on the internet of both windows and mac users being unable to restore using custom keys. Though as you rightly sate other people have been able too.
 
More from Mozy

WannaGoMac - Happy to help, but need more detail. Will you give me and/or the support team a ring at +1.801.756.2331 or send us email at support@mozy.com?

eenu (and all) - After some testing we discovered that if you copy files off of the restore.dmg to your desktop (or elsewhere) and then try to decrypt them that you may run into errors. (This is because of the hidden .DS_Store files that Finder creates.) The workaround until we release another version of our decrypt utility is to make sure you always decrypt directly from the mounted .dmg. This is one scenario that would explain the decrypt errors encountered by David. If anyone sees this behavior when decrypting directly from the .dmg we would would really like to hear from them. Thank you.

Vance Checketts
COO & VP of Products
Mozy
 
Vance said:
WannaGoMac - Happy to help, but need more detail. Will you give me and/or the support team a ring at +1.801.756.2331 or send us email at support@mozy.com?

eenu (and all) - After some testing we discovered that if you copy files off of the restore.dmg to your desktop (or elsewhere) and then try to decrypt them that you may run into errors. (This is because of the hidden .DS_Store files that Finder creates.) The workaround until we release another version of our decrypt utility is to make sure you always decrypt directly from the mounted .dmg. This is one scenario that would explain the decrypt errors encountered by David. If anyone sees this behavior when decrypting directly from the .dmg we would would really like to hear from them. Thank you.

Vance Checketts
COO & VP of Products
Mozy
Click to expand...

Vance just emailed you and Tyler and confirmed what you just said above is incorrect :(

I have always been dycrpting direct from the .dmg and its always screwed up.

I have quoted my email below.

I uploaded one PDF file and my ical backups etc. I then asked for a web restore of the PDF file. I downloaded the .dmg to /Users/davidmoore/Desktop/Downloads/Programs/.

I entered the decrypt utility and actually pasted the key i entered in the mozy setup so there is no way it is wrong at all and selected the file in the directory above as the source and my desktop (/Users/davidmoore/Desktop/) as the destination and got the following error:

"There was an error decrypting your files. Double check that the key you specified is correct."

No matter what destination i use the same error occurs. So as far as i can tell from your last email it should work but it doesn't.
Click to expand...
 
*Mods please leave this as it requires a fresh post*

The issue i have highlighted is resolved. Before you enter the decrypt process the .dmg file needs to be mounted. Then you select this mounted file as the source and choose a destination of your choice. This will now work.

As i said to Tyler and Vance they have my custom again. I'll make a point of saying they only have it thanks to the way they have both handled things. It's been really commendable the way tyler emailed me directly to say sorry for their support staff and the way vance posted here on mac rumors, for that i thank them both.

As a result they have now got me back as a monthly customer and i hope this issue will highlight shortcomings in their support staff/service and that this will improve over time.

Tyler, Vance.... thanks again!
 
Mozy Sucks

It took 5 weeks to get my back-up disk (for which they charge a $35 overnight delivery charge) The disk did not have all my files. No one responded to my emails. I finally reached "Brian" by phone who promised to figure it out and after several more weeks - no call back. They also said they would refund the express mail charge to which they haven't. I've been trying to call them this morning but their phone line is busy! Its so bad that I'm getting ready to call my lawyer. Mozy is not a service where you would back-up anything that you don't mind losing forever. Stay clear. See other blog posts on the internet to this effect.
 
Dane Hartzell said:
It took 5 weeks to get my back-up disk (for which they charge a $35 overnight delivery charge) The disk did not have all my files. No one responded to my emails. I finally reached "Brian" by phone who promised to figure it out and after several more weeks - no call back. They also said they would refund the express mail charge to which they haven't. I've been trying to call them this morning but their phone line is busy! Its so bad that I'm getting ready to call my lawyer. Mozy is not a service where you would back-up anything that you don't mind losing forever. Stay clear. See other blog posts on the internet to this effect.
Click to expand...

Guess you get what you pay for? They are very very inexpensive so...
 
Sucking less

It isnt cheap but if it works, it would be worth it. The good news is they called back today. They sound sincere in resolving the issue. I'll keep you posted.
 
Mozy response

Dane - Thanks for giving us a second chance. As you heard from our support team, we're sending a new DVD and doing several other things to make sure you're happy. I apologize publicly for letting the situation get to this point. We're working hard to put things right.

Vance Checketts
COO & VP of Products
Mozy
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back