Reminiscing Posted May 9, 2010 Share Posted May 9, 2010 I'm seriously considering automatic online back up again for the convenience. I can back up everything I would like to back up where I already back up and share my photos and layouts -- Smugmug -- but only manually. I wish they had an automatic backup service. My computer is a laptop with a nearly full 184GB hard drive and I have a 1 TB WD My Book EHD which I haven't been connecting with very often. The EHD contains all the stuff from my old desktop machine (way more than could fit on my laptop!) plus some of the newer stuff that I've been collecting on my laptop. So it's more of a storage place, not a back up, though the photos and layouts on it are backed up at Smugmug, and because I've found it slow to access, I've only been using it when I want more selection of scrapping supplies or to scrap old pictures. My Questions: How does using an automatic back up service work with laptops, which we usually close when we're not using them? And, will I need to start attaching my EHD on a daily basis, telling Mozy to back up at a certain scheduled time, or what? For the initial back up, which I'm sure will take at least a month, judging from my past experience with Backblaze, do I have to leave my laptop open? Or do things continue to upload if I just shut the lid, which I think just makes it "sleep" not shut down? Thanks for helping me figure this out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaughnde Posted May 9, 2010 Share Posted May 9, 2010 Michele, I would not recommend Mozy because every time you shut down your computer it has to restart the backup when you log back onto the internet and so my own initial backup never really got off the ground. My suggestion is to get another 1 or 2 TB EHD and get Acronis and back up your laptop to the EHD with Acronis. April Showers will have more information about this as her husband does a lot of the backups with Acronis. For your own laptop backup, I would recommend Carbonite as it does backup laptops and computers but not EHD's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjc Posted May 10, 2010 Share Posted May 10, 2010 i am not sure if v is correct....first i suggest you contact mozy and they will be able to answer your questions...they have live on line chat but i am not sure if that is only for registered customers but surely there will be a way to contact them ....i have mozy and also have all my stuff on an ehd.... i regularly disconnect my ehd and take it with me when i go to my dd...i just have to remember to suspend the backup by just checking suspend on the mozy icon on my desktop...then mozy wont go on on its regularly scheduled time.... you pick the time you want the backups to run...i do mine every night at 11 pm.... so you could pick the time that works for you...i would say that initially you will have to leave your laptop and ehd connected and on so that it can do all the backups ...then it just adds anything new or anything you have made any changes to.... let me know how you make out when you call or live chat with them...and if you need more info maybe you can pm me...i have had mozy for about 2 years now and it is fine by me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bikeneday Posted May 10, 2010 Share Posted May 10, 2010 I use Mozy on my laptop & EHD. I did have to leave it open & connected through the initial backup, but now it takes just a little bit of time to do my backups. During the intial backup, I just left it open on my desk, put the settings so it wouldn't go to sleep at all. Once the initial backup was done, I changed it back. I did have a hard drive crash on my laptop & was able to retrieve everything from Mozy. I do suspend the backup if I need to remove the EHD for any reason, that is so easy to do. Good Luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glassbird Posted May 11, 2010 Share Posted May 11, 2010 Suspending the backup is the key, if you intend to disconnect your EHD or laptop. Backing up daily is a great idea, and I wish I could claim to be that organized! What I do is at least once a month I connect my 500 GB EHD to my laptop and copy all my pictures and layouts (and whatever else) onto the EHD in one big file with the date on it. Then I hook up the EHD to my desktop PC (that I rarely use) and open up Mozy, UN-suspend the backup, and tell it to back up the new file. This lets me take my laptop away and use it while my stuff gets backed up on Mozy. (And it is also backed up on the EHD.) Eventually, when I need space, I will go back and delete the oldest files. If you do not have a desktop laying around, then you will have to leave the EHD and laptop connected to the internet while it backs up. You can interrupt the initial backup if you have too...just give it plenty of time to stop the process so it can restart later with no problems. Set it up to run at night or when you will be not using it for a while. Just remember to suspend the backup after it is done, or the system will "look" for files to back up at some point and if it can not find the files (because you are disconnected), Mozy will delete the files after a while! (I figured this out the hard way...all my files vanished and I had to do the initial backup AGAIN.) Smaller backups, of the new or changed stuff, will not take long. Its the big backups, and initial backups, that take some time. CT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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