[Ed. note - Updated 05/22, see end of article.]

After my MacBook drama last week at Mobius, I decided it might be worthwhile to check into over-the-air backup solutions for my personal data. I use rsync via the Mac Terminal as one of my Gear Diary backup solutions, but never thought it necessary to do it for my personal stuff…until now.

One solution that a friend recommended was Mozy, which just so happens to give a 2GB free account so you can see if it will work for you. Today I signed up to try it out…

In case you are wondering, the reason why I didn’t go with rsync for my personal data is that I wanted something that was a bit more UI friendly for personal use, and Mozy definitely appears to offer that. They have versions available for both Windows and Mac, so right off the bat we were getting along fine.

Once I got my account set up, I liked the online display showing what was available.

Here’s where I ran into a bit of a snafu. You see, even when only backing up the bare-bones necessities, it turns out that 2GB isn’t as much space as it seemed. :-/

I think I may just go ahead and sign up for the unlimited plan. It’s $4.95 a month, and certainly a reasonable price.

On thing is holding me back - privacy, since uploading my personal data would effectively be putting it “out there”. According to the Mozy FAQ:

Is Mozy secure?

Yes. When you use Mozy, your files are encrypted on your computer using 448-bit Blowfish encryption and then transferred to the Mozy servers using 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption. You have the option of using a Mozy key or your own private key to encrypt your data. Note that if you use your own private key, you must be very careful about not losing it because if you do, we won’t be able to help. It’s impossible for us to decrypt your data when you use your own key. Most users opt to use the Mozy key, but the choice is entirely yours.

I’m worried about privacy. How does Mozy respect my privacy?

The short answer is: We don’t read your data or sell your information to anyone.

The long answer is in our privacy section.

So a quick peek at the privacy section showed this:

Personal Data

We will not sell or market the email addresses or other collected personal information of registered Users to third parties.

We will not view the files that you backup using the Service.

We may view your file system information (file extensions, sizes etc. but not your file contents) to provide technical support.

You acknowledge and agree that Mozy, Inc. may occasionally send you administrative communications regarding your account or the Service via email.

So far so good…still looking…

SECURITY

Mozy, Inc. uses industry standard security measures to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. Although we make good faith efforts to store the information collected by Mozy, Inc. in a secure operating environment that is not available to the public, Mozy, Inc. cannot guarantee complete security. Further, while we take reasonable steps to ensure the integrity and security of our network and systems, we cannot guarantee that our security measures will prevent third-party “crackers” from obtaining this information.

This one makes me feel a bit less secure, but then maybe I am being unreasonable? If a “cracker” really wants into a system - any system, I don’t know that anyone could guarantee that they could keep them out.

So these are the issues I have to weigh:

1. As an individual I am probably not an attractive cracker target. But as proved by my MBP’s meltdown, I need to back up my data in a manner which allows me to reach it at any time, from anywhere in the world. Remote backup with online access is a lovely way to make sure that if disaster strikes my data is in a secure off-site location.

2. If I use an over-the-air backup solution and their security measures fail, then my sensitive data - including financial information and personal documents could potentially become public. But how often does this really happen?

Do any of you have any online backup stories to share? Do you have a particular service (maybe even Mozy) that you recommend? Do tell…

Updated 05/22: As I mentioned in the comments, I went ahead and purchased the unlimited two-year plan with Mozy. I had intended to upload my entire Air’s backup file (approx 40GB), but the 7+ day upload time gave me pause. Nevertheless, I let it begin. After about 1.6GB had uploaded, nothing else would. I restarted my computer, restarted Mozy, got irritated, uninstalled Mozy, reinstalled Mozy, got irritated, attempted to cut my upload back to a bare-bones minimum of 5GB critical data, couldn’t get it to load, and then finally requested a refund yesterday. Today I was told that they would process it. I am still interested in over-the-air backup solution, but I am done with this one.