Mozy Home represents one of the two main services offered by Mozy for online backup. Mozy Pro is the other service which is designed specifically for business use. As the name suggests, Mozy Home is commonly used for home and personal use being one of the most affordable backup solutions available today. The review made for Mozy Home will provide a fair value of the quality of their services, in order to help you decide whether to choose it or not.

For less than $5 per month, here’s a summary of what you get:

Unlimited storage The software is easy to install and use. You can automatically or manually backup your files either on the Pc or Mac. For both, transmission and file storage, multi-layer security is ensured. The backup process works smoothly and without making sound or damaging your computer. Remote access to your documents.

What’s Good and Not-so-Good

Probably the best thing about Mozy Home is that there is a free version for those who do not have a lot of data backup needs. With this plan you are allowed up to 2GB of backup storage space. If you determine that you are going to need more than that you just upgrade to the unlimited plan which is still less than $5 per month.

Installation and setup is simple with Mozy Home. First time users will have no problem getting started with this user friendly interface. Your initial backup might take days to complete so do not be alarmed. The amount of time the initial backup will takes completely depends on the amount of data that is being backed up and the speed of your internet connection.

After your initial backup is finished you then can set your backups to be automated based on the schedule you set up. So basically, once the schedule is set Mozy will do all the work in the background without affecting your ability to continue to use your computer. Another wonderful and important service Mozy provides is that it encrypts your files before it uploads them and they remain encrypted while they are stored on their secure server. This security step is extremely important to give you peace of mind that your data is not going to be compromised.

When you want to restore your files you are given three options. You can restore your data onto your desktop, the web or a DVD. Having these different options is very good but there have been some reports that restoration can be a very slow process. Sometimes it can take 24 hours just to get your data prepared for restoration then add in the download time. If you choose the DVD option then you will need to add in the extra shipping time.

For smaller files, you can do a quick and easy desktop restore, where you simply use the restore interface found in your Mozy Home desktop software interface. For larger files however, Mozy recommends you use web restore where you make a restore request directly to Mozy. While the request itself can be done easily, downloading the zip files can take some time, and for those unfamiliar with zip files, sorting through these can be pretty daunting. If either option doesn’t work for you, you can also use the DVD restore alternative and have your files sent to you on DVD for a fee of about $60.

An important disadvantage of Mozy Home is regarding their customer support. Many users complaint about the fact that Mozy does not supply a telephone number to offer their support. In this way, users can contact Mozy customer support only via e-mail and live chat. Plus, some users are not satisfied by the way in which Mozy customer support responds to queries. Even if some users are not entirely satisfied by Mozy services, some evaluate their responsiveness as excellent.

Review Summary

Just like any other online backup service, Mozy Home has its pros and cons. It isn’t perfect but then again no service is. Overall, Mozy Home is an excellent value. To get unlimited backup for less than $5 per month is cheap “insurance” and a great way to protect your important files and data.