Ask HN: Best alternative to Mozy?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2167346

by rexreed • 15 years ago

9 17 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

What's the best option for background, continuous Internet backup other than building something yourself? Estimate around 150 GB of needed backup.

Khao• 15 years ago

Haven't tested it personnally but SpiderOak seems suitable to your needs.

adeelarshad82• 15 years ago

Carbonite - http://goo.gl/TTmDD

rexreed5• 15 years ago

Have you switched to it from Mozy? If so, what are the differences / advantages?

taylorbuley• 15 years ago

Just posted about Arq on another recent Mozy-related thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2167171). Arq is an OS X program that backs up folders to Amazon S3.

Those new Mozy prices seem pretty close (if not cheaper) to what S3 will charge you, even for reduced redundancy storage.

The other thread quoted Mozy pricing at $432/year for 385 gigs. Amazon runs about 10 cents a gig for reduced redundancy, and another 10 cents a gig for transfer.

For around 150 GB of backup, you're looking at about $15 a month for S3 storage and another $15 to get the data from your machine to Amazon's.

cperciva• 15 years ago

Those new Mozy prices seem pretty close (if not cheaper) to what S3 will charge you, even for reduced redundancy storage.

Only if you completely fill your quota at Mozy. Most people don't have data neatly quantized into units of 50 GB ($6/month) and 125 GB ($10/month), so they'll end up paying the full price for less storage. In contrast, Amazon only charges for actual usage.

bdclimber142• 15 years ago

I was typing Dropbox, but realized their limit is 100 GB. Seriously though, for backup, nothign can compare to Dropbox. Continuously synced, no user input required, little resource consumption, and continuous versioning.

I've heard they've planned to offer more than 100 GB, but all in all, I think its far superior to Mozy or other alternatives, which I've used.

The peace of mind, knowing that my laptop can catch on fire, or be stolen, and I won't even loose a minute of work is very rewarding. With Mozy, I was always stressed, checking if my backup ran because I closed my laptop lid, or left it in the bag.

Besides, loosing even a day's worth of work is incredibly depressing.

rexreed5• 15 years ago

How does Dropbox secure their data? Most of the online backup co's use 448-bit Blowfish SSL encryption with a password to encrypt the private key

bdclimber142• 15 years ago

Honestly, I don't know the answer to this. Their online access uses standard SSL, but the data uploading is unknown to me. Security comes second to convenience and reliability for me. Anything sensitive information, I'll encrypt locally myself, which in turn encrypts on Dropbox.

rexreed5• 15 years ago

Someone suggested in another thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2166935) to try BackBlaze (http://www.backblaze.com/) - unlimited for $5 per computer -- the old Mozy model. Anyone have any experience?

rexreed5• 15 years ago

Crashplan (http://www.crashplan.com) also looks interesting and uses an annual payment model - $49.95 / yr for unlimited storage (less than $5 / mo).

rexreed5• 15 years ago

Here's a good review of backup options (note that it's a bit out of date given Mozy's price change): http://www.macworld.com/article/142606/2009/09/online_backup...

brokentone• 15 years ago

I use Backblaze and have never had a problem. Stores versioned files for 30 days, is easy to retrieve, and is pretty cheap. The throttle control is nice as all the way up nearly cuts off Internet access for other users on some connections.

wmboy• 15 years ago

Diino is a good option. US$49 per year for unlimited back up.

Also, Diino are quite big and offer white label back up services to large companies like ISP's. This is good to note as it shows they'll be around for some time.

sabj• 15 years ago

You might find this thread I started a few months ago to be valuable, it discussed a variety of different online backup tools at length:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1946416

Other options, taken from there or elsewhere:

Carbonite (http://www.carbonite.com )

Crashplan (http://www.crashplan.com )

Backblaze (http://www.backblaze.com )

DropBox, Arq, others as mentioned already...

Hybir: https://www.hybir.com/

Amazon S3 (in conjunction with some services like http://code.google.com/p/duplicati/ or http://amanda.org/ or https://www.jungledisk.com/)

I didn't find a solution that matched my needs exactly when I found myself in your shoes, but at least there are a fair number of choices there!

fdb• 15 years ago

I use Backblaze for about 6 months now. The Mac and Windows client is light-weight, which is a huge plus. Unlimited space, and you can recover your files as a zip archive or they can send you a hard drive with your data.

I've tried restoring files without any problems.

PonyGumbo• 15 years ago

I switched from Mozy Pro to Jungle Disk about six months ago, and I like it.

joanou• 15 years ago

AltDrive (http://altdrive.com) is unlimited, has a free two month trial, and is $4.45/mo or $44.50/yr. The client is lightweight and full featured. Data is encrypted using AES-256 CTR mode with your key before leaving your computer. It supports Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux, has data deduplication, throttle control, and file versioning. It is easy to setup and use and has online video tutorials and a knowledgebase.

Ask HN: Best alternative to Mozy?

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