Mozy Online Backup - Free Online Data Storage

Mozy.com provides you 2 gigabytes of online backup storage at no monetary cost to the user. What they ask in return is you allow them to send you topic specific emails in exchange for this service. In other words you are allowing them to send you advertising emails in exchange for this service. Here is an excerpt from their website explaining their business model.

Here's the catch - aside from the good karma we get for offering a great free service, every once in a while we get to send you email advertisements for products and services that we think are useful. (We'll never give your email address to an advertiser - any emails will come straight through us.)

Backups have always been the computer user's biggest headache, mainly because so many of us just don't do it. It's like any other kind of insurance; it's a pain to deal with, but we are so glad we have it when our hard drive crashes or we have the occasion to need an accurate back up. The service that Mozy provides is simple and easy to use. You sign up for an account, provide them some information such as your email address, interests, and zip code and in exchange you get 2GB of online storage. You then download their desktop application and do your backup (The first one my take some time depending on the amount of information). Here is the part I really like; you can set the application to back every day, week, or do incremental backups when ever the computer is inactive. This feature can ensure you always have an up to date back up of your data without manually backing up your hard drive.

Now let's examine the cost, because there is one, and that being the emails they will send you. You may have noticed that I am not using the term Spam. Spam is defined as unsolicited communication, since you have given them permission these emails can not be classified as spam. I have been using this service for over four months now and the amount of emails from Mozy is miniscule in comparison to the number of Viagra emails my spam filter catches. The company also offers a nice affiliate program; they pay you in additional storage space for all referrals.

There are plenty of blog's out there condemning this business model but you need to be the judge on whether this is a fair exchange. Personally I am very happy with Mozy. In my opinion it is free and I don't mind a couple emails every once in a while in exchange for 2 GB of online storage. I do my backups daily with Mozy and have done a restore when I had an issue with my laptop and needed to format my drive. I went in to this with my eyes open when I signed up as the company is up front with what they are doing and don't hide the fact that you will receive emails in exchange for their service. I will also add that this service in my opinion should be used in conjunction with your normal backups as nothing takes the place of hard copy back-up. For the most part I have been extremely happy with the service, and highly recommend it as a service to check out. If you would like more information on this service try this link: Mozy.Com If you do decide to give it a try I would appreciate you use my affiliate code (4H4PRH) as I can always use the extra storage:).

Happy Computing