Peter Vatistas

This is an awesome application that allows you to plug your Mac formatted and partitioned hard drive (internal & external) into your PC running Windows XP or Windows Vista. I had several external hard drives that I formatted and partitioned on OS X Leopard. I brought one of the drives home to grab some data off of it on my Vista box when I realized there is no way to view the data. After searching for a few hours I found MacDrive, the exact solution I needed for this situation. MacDrive came recommended by some very reputable members on the Microsoft IT Advisory Council (thanks guys!).

MacDrive gives you access to all your Mac-formatted disks from Windows and even the Mac partition. You can access files on the Mac disk just like you would with a Windows formatted disk. Open files from the disk or from within a program. Mac files automatically get the right icons and file name extensions under both Windows and Mac OS.

Click here to read more and download

The other night I was organizing all my files, pictures, and music on my computer and I realized if I were to lose even one folder I would be screwed. Normally I run backups every night using an external drive but I never really checked it. I decided to check my backup drives to make sure everything was working properly and the data was there, it wasn’t.

Now just so you know, at one time or another my backup drives were working properly and when I needed to restore any data it was not that hard. For some reason my main backup drive had failed and then data was lost but fortunately for me I still had everything on my main drives. That got me thinking, what is the best and easiest solution out there for backing up my data without worrying about replacing hard drives or making sure everything is running properly. I am an IT guy by day, I don’t want to be an IT guy at home.

A few hours later I found the solution I was looking for and it was a bit overwhelming. I posted my question for a remote backup solutions in many forums, blogs, as well as emailing my IT friends and colleagues; almost everyone said “Mozy“. So I went to the Mozy website and signed up for their MozyHome Free account, 2GB’s of storage! Here is a few features Mozy offers to all their customers, free and paid:

* Open/locked file support: Mozy will back up your documents whether they’re open or closed.
* 128-bit SSL encryption: The same technology used by banks secures your data during the backup process.
* 448-bit Blowfish encryption: Secures your files while in storage, providing peace of mind that your private data is safe from hackers.
* Automatic: Schedule the times to back up and MozyHome does the rest.
* New and changed file detection: MozyHome finds and saves the smallest changes.
* Backs up Outlook files: Disaster-proof email protection.
* Block-level incremental backup: After the initial backup, MozyHome only backs up files that have been added or changed, making subsequent backups lightning fast.
* MozyHome currently supports Windows 2000, XP, and Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4
* MozyPro supports Windows 2000, 2003, XP, and Vista.

Those are some pretty slick services and support for no up front or monthly charges. Whats really cool is their software that is installed on your computer. The application itself runs in the background and has a very small footprint with regards to your memory (RAM) and CPU utilization. Another cool feature is how you can set the amount of bandwidth you want it to use during backups. Because I have a cable modem I set that puppy as high as it can go but for anyone out there who has DSL or less you can throttle it to whatever you need.

Whether your looking for a backup solution or not, Mozy is the only free, full-featured remote backup service. Get peace of mind - click here to try Mozy today.