Mozy, Carbonite, Backblaze, etc

[Jony Mac]

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I'm looking to get away from time machine and I'm thinking if online backups. I have MobileMe but the backing up to iDisk sucks. I was thinking of Mozy, Carbonite, or Backblaze since I have heard of them.


Does anyone here use any? I see Backblaze can't copy files over 9GB so that means my iPhoto library wouldn't work.

Any help would be appreciated. Using time machine on portables us kinda rough.

 

[silver25u]

I used Carbonite for over 6 months until I tried to actually use it earlier this month. Carbonite royally messed up my data. There technical and customer support is pathetic and mainly consists of sending links to FAQ articles. That said, even if you don't have problems like I experienced, Carbonite has a few drawbacks. Their Mac software is poorly written. Color coded icons representing status often were wrong and the restore screen often frozen. This is in addition to lack of information on restore status (i.e. what is actually being restored) and no "resume" function. You computer must stay on continuously to restore large large chunks of data. To be a larger conceptual problem with Carbonite is their lack of versioning. It keeps your last 30 days of data and that is what you restore - a mashup of 30 days of worth of changes. For example after uncorrupting my iPhoto library, I had the "current" library plus all the photos I had deleted over the previous month.

I'm on Comcast HSI and it took me just over a week to download my iPhoto and iTunes libraries.

As for your concern about your iPhoto library, it is not a single file larger than 9GB. Your iPhoto library consists of many <9GB files so backblaze would indeed back it up.

At the moment I'm back to TM as I expect it to be "safer" and not to have the long restore time as online backup. That said, I expect that in the near future I'll give Backblaze a try. That or I might go crazy and just backup to my on FTP. I wish Dropbox was feasable for significant data backup (my Carbonite backup was approx 250GB).

 

[gks]

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I'm looking to get away from time machine and I'm thinking if online backups. I have MobileMe but the backing up to iDisk sucks. I was thinking of Mozy, Carbonite, or Backblaze since I have heard of them.


Does anyone here use any? I see Backblaze can't copy files over 9GB so that means my iPhoto library wouldn't work.

Any help would be appreciated. Using time machine on portables us kinda rough.

Your iPhoto library is actually a Bundle. It's a folder that looks like one file to you in Finder. It's actually a folder with more folders and lots of files inside it.

 

[Jony Mac]

Ahh okay, the iPhoto library thing makes sense being a bundle. I'm still not sure what to do. I was talking with someone else yesterday who uses Backblaze and he said he noticed it runs slow. I'm curious about Mozy. I used the free 2GB program with Mozy over a year ago on my Windows 7 machine for some basic files.

Now I'd like to get everything... I'm just not sure which service is best...or to use it at al.

 

[gks]

Ahh okay, the iPhoto library thing makes sense being a bundle. I'm still not sure what to do. I was talking with someone else yesterday who uses Backblaze and he said he noticed it runs slow. I'm curious about Mozy. I used the free 2GB program with Mozy over a year ago on my Windows 7 machine for some basic files.

Now I'd like to get everything... I'm just not sure which service is best...or to use it at al.

I'd listen to the podcast called Hypercritical. The one on backups, i think it's episode 2. Talks a lot about backups...

These over the net backup things are really only useful as emergency "last resort" type things. A local backup to another hard drive is better.. listen to the podcast, it will help you.

 

[dexterdex]

I ws thinking the same.. Heard of dropbox? I was using them but decided to take an old pc and turn it into a pc with an external HD backup..

 

[neko girl]

Have you taken a look at CrashPlan? No storage limit.

There is also Arq.

By the way, I don't know how Backblaze handles things, but your iPhoto and Aperture libraries actually are packages, or directories. CrashPlan treats them as directories, and Backblaze may too. BTW, Backblaze is not very good in terms of saving everything that accompanies your file on HFS:
http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/backblaze-backup-bouncer-test.txt

Parent page is here:
http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/index.php

Edit: Just listing more options for you, if it helps you.
-Windows Live Mesh is free. It is like Dropbox, but 5GB free and it runs very nicely on a Mac. There are no premium options for Live Mesh, so 5 GB is it.
-There are various solutions out there that use Amazon S3 as a backup substrate. You could Google for these, but I think Amazon S3 is generally very expensive.
-Elephant Drive. Works on Mac and PC and has one/multiple computer options
-You could also get a Mac Mini and use home sync feature that comes with OSX server. The server Mini comes with 1 TB.

 

[Abbsta]

I'm currently considering dollydrive.com

They are 'new' in the scene and mentioned around the blogs at macworld. In a nutshell, it's cloud storage for TM.

EDIT: I forgot to add memopal.com as another option that I'm looking at.

 

[silver25u]

FYI - Mozy has new less generous pricing/plans: http://mozy.com/home/newplans

 

[Kenrik]

Spideroak is the best out there.
Their software is stable as a rock and it works on PC, MAC AND LINUX!.

Go give SpiderOak a look.

 

[silver25u]

Spideroak is the best out there.
Their software is stable as a rock and it works on PC, MAC AND LINUX!.

Go give SpiderOak a look.

I don't even know where to begin with the mess that is spideroak's Mac client... let alone the actual service. Cross platform is a nice addtional feature but the core product/functionality still needs to be rock solid.

 

[BadaBing!!]

With the new prices, I'll leave Mozy.. I want to switch to either Carbonite or Backblaze but don't know which is the best... Carbonite has an iPhone app though and that's something I'd like..

 

[santaliqueur]

With the new prices, I'll leave Mozy.. I want to switch to either Carbonite or Backblaze but don't know which is the best... Carbonite has an iPhone app though and that's something I'd like..

Skip Carbonite.

I've tried all 3 of the OP's companies asked about (Carbonite, Mozy, Backblaze). I have lots of data. Prob 4 TB.

All 3 companies advertise unlimited storage, but Carbonite and Mozy SEVERELY throttle you after you have uploaded 200 GB. Backblaze hasn't throttled me yet, and I'm well beyond what I had on Carbonite or Mozy.

Unlimited space is great, but when you can upload only 2 KB/s, what good is it? Try Backblaze, I'm quite happy with it. I've been uploading at 700 KB/s over Fios for a month, with no throttling.

 

[BadaBing!!]

Skip Carbonite.

I've tried all 3 of the OP's companies asked about (Carbonite, Mozy, Backblaze). I have lots of data. Prob 4 TB.

All 3 companies advertise unlimited storage, but Carbonite and Mozy SEVERELY throttle you after you have uploaded 200 GB. Backblaze hasn't throttled me yet, and I'm well beyond what I had on Carbonite or Mozy.

Unlimited space is great, but when you can upload only 2 KB/s, what good is it? Try Backblaze, I'm quite happy with it. I've been uploading at 700 KB/s over Fios for a month, with no throttling.

Thanks for you input...

Anyone tried CrashPlan too ? Looks good. Now it's between CrashPlan and BackBlaze..

 

[sigamy]

MacWorld just reviewed the leading options in Dec:
http://www.macworld.com/article/156511/2010/12/whatonlinebackupservice.html

I'm thinking about going with CrashPlan. It looks like the best for my needs.

Another option is Amazon S3 with or without JungleDisk. But, this can get expensive. I was using this combo when I was running a web site that used Amazon S3.

btw, why stop Time Machine? You have it running now so keep that and add online backup as another arrow in your backup strategy.

I also use Apple's Backup software to do weekly and monthly backups of Home folder, iLife libraries and Documents & Settings to iDisk.

You can never have too many backups.

 

[bkray1]

I currently use CrashPlan for my Mac, and have had no issues. I also set my Parents up with their service on their PC's under the fam plan, and it backsup everything automatically. I also use TimeMachine and Superduper.

Bryan

 

[snberk103]

I too was looking at online backup, but the prices turned me off. For the amount I want to store would cost $100 to $200 per year. Every year.

So I took an extra external HD, backed up the system and put it into our safety deposit box. Took, oh, part of an afternoon. But I'm done. I'll do it again in week or two. The HD probably cost about the same as a year's worth of online storage (roughly) so if I get 2 years of life out of it I'm ahead of the game. Plus now I get to write off the box as a business expense.

Note: This is my "disaster" plan - I still do local nightly bootable backups.

 

[santaliqueur]

Thanks for you input...

Anyone tried CrashPlan too ? Looks good. Now it's between CrashPlan and BackBlaze..

Crashplan seems decent, but their unlimited service is something you have to buy yearly, up front. With Backblaze, you can buy it monthly. $5 to test it out, much better than $50 and being stuck with something you don't like (in case you end up not liking it). If Backblaze was terrible, I'd only be out $5.

 

[gglockner]

Read the book "Take Control of Mac OS X Backups" by Joe Kissell (http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/backup-macosx). He covers all the tradeoffs of what to backup, bootable backups, and how to backup (external media, Time Machine/Time Capsule, online backups, etc.).

In my case, I have too much data to backup online, even with a fast cable modem connection. I use a pair of external drives for bootable backups (1 offsite, 1 onsite) plus a Time Machine for stupid mistakes (oops, didn't mean to delete that file...).

 

[BadaBing!!]

Crashplan seems decent, but their unlimited service is something you have to buy yearly, up front. With Backblaze, you can buy it monthly. $5 to test it out, much better than $50 and being stuck with something you don't like (in case you end up not liking it). If Backblaze was terrible, I'd only be out $5.

they say they'll credit you any remaining time if you cancel though...

 

[santaliqueur]

they say they'll credit you any remaining time if you cancel though...

Guess that's a decent offer if you are really persistent on using Crashplan. I'm quite happy with Backblaze so far, if someone tries Crashplan with a lot of data, let us know.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

Crashplan seems decent, but their unlimited service is something you have to buy yearly, up front. With Backblaze, you can buy it monthly. $5 to test it out, much better than $50 and being stuck with something you don't like (in case you end up not liking it). If Backblaze was terrible, I'd only be out $5.

Not so, at least not at the moment -- their website shows month-to-month options for all their plans, including $5/mo for the unlimited.

I think I'll give them a try, since my Mozy subscription expires next week and they've already told me my cost will be 3x as much.

 

[BadaBing!!]

I've been with CrashPlan for about 3 weeks.
So far, everything is great. I uploaded about 70Gb of data within a few days (way faster than Mozy) but had to stop and wait next month since I have a 100Gb monthly data cap with my ISP.

 

[flynz4]

I was on Mozy a couple of years ago, but I switched to Crashplan+ in 2009. I am backing up 5 computers (Macs and PCs) on the unlimited family plan.

My personal iMac has the largest backup set, currently at 742 GB. I have it set to start a new backup every 15 minutes. It runs in the background, and you would never know it is occurring unless you explicitly check. Crashplan does send a backup report at whatever interval you request. I have mine set for weekly. It takes just a second to scan the report and see that all the computers are being backed up.

My biggest reason for switching from Mozy was their lack of unlimited versioning... particularly for deleted files. They remove the backup after 30 days. By contrast, Crashplan+ keeps every version of every file forever. This is important if you have an inadvertent file deletion. An example would be a "move" vs "copy" operation into a temporary location.

If you have bandwidth restrictions, you can seed your backup to the cloud via mail (they send you a HDD to return to them) for an extra fee.

With Crashplan+, all of your data is encrypted on you own machine using 448b blowfish encryption. That will not be cracked in my lifetime.

I am a strong supporter.

/Jim