Back up documents online with Mozy

To get started, type https://mozy.com/registration/free into the address bar of your browser. Don’t forget the extra ‘s’ at the end of the ‘http’. Complete the registration form, providing a valid email address, a password and entering the validation code. Click Continue. Provide the other personal information requested and click Continue again. Once the validation email arrives click the link in it or copy and paste it into the browser address bar. This confirms the account creation and provides a download link for the software. Opt to download for Windows, save the file to the Windows Desktop and double-click to launch it. Now follow the installation wizard.

When Mozy has installed, the configuration wizard starts. Enter the email address used to sign up for the account as the username and the password selected on the registration form. Mozy takes a few moments to connect to its server and verify the account. The next step involves selecting an encryption method. The easiest option is to select “Encrypt my data with MozyHome’s own 448-bit key”. This is extremely secure and doesn’t require any further steps to apply. Click Next.

Mozy lists the most common file types and locations detected on this PC that may need to be backed up. Use the tick-boxes to select what to back up. Clear any boxes to remove items from the backup. The indicator at the bottom of the window shows the amount of the 2GB quota used up. Any box displayed in grey indicates that the contents of that folder are only partially selected for backup. This may be because the Spreadsheets and Databases folder is found within My Documents but Photos, which is also there, hasn’t been selected.

Click next to begin the internet connection test. Mozy only works with broadband connections so it needs to verify that there’s enough bandwidth available. Ensure that there are no other programs running that may be using the internet and click Start Test. After a short period, Mozy reports the speed of the line and provides an estimate of how much data can be backed up over a day. This gives an indication of how long the initial backup will take. It’s normal for the first backup to take over a day, but subsequent ones are incremental and so backup only data that has changed.

Click Next and use the slider to determine the speed of the backup. This controls how much of the internet connection’s upload bandwidth Mozy uses. As data is encrypted it also uses processing power to perform the encryption. If the slider is moved fully to the left, there may be little uploading bandwidth available and tasks like sending email will take a very long time. It’s best to set the slider at about three-quarters of the way across to give reasonably fast backups without impacting too much on performance.

The configuration wizard is now complete. Opt to start the initial backup right now and click Finish. Mozy begins encrypting and uploading data. Depending on the amount of the quota used and the internet connection speed, this may take a couple of days during which time the PC must stay on and connected to the internet. It’s still possible to use the computer during this time and it’s important to be patient while the backup takes place. Future ones will be much quicker.