SugarSync vs. Mozy
Published Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
I recently had the pleasure of participating in SugarSync beta. The beta is now finished and anyone can signup for a 45 day trial. Today is the last day of my trial. While testing SugarSync I can’t help but compare it to my current online backup solution, Mozy. Comparing SugarSync and Mozy really isn’t fair. SugarSync, as the name implies, is a syncing program. Mozy, on the other hand, is an off-site backup solution. However, because SugarSync copies your files to their website it also serves as a backup solution. I suspect many people are using it this way.
What’s the same?
With both Mozy and SugarSync you install an application on your desktop, select which folders you want to backup/sync, and let it go. Both programs then monitor the folders you specified and uploads changes to the website. With either application you can download the files either through the application or online.
What makes SugarSync better?
Mozy offers unlimited backup for $4.95 a month. For the same price on SugarSync you get 30 GB which for most people is plenty and practically speaking all I would every imagine uploading to Mozy in its current state. The truth with Mozy is that once I got above a few GB it became painfully slow index and upload files. Now your mileage may very. The files I’m backing up to Mozy are actually periodically copied from my main drive to my backup drive before being scanned and uploaded (see Backup Strategy). That means many files are changed all at once not one at a time over many days as Mozy expects. It takes Mozy a long time to sort out what files have changed and several days to upload all these files. SugarSync doesn’t appear to have this problem at least during the limited beta when traffic was likely low. Now I haven’t done any intensive benchmarking so I can’t say for sure but files appear to be sorted and uploaded to SugarSync rather quickly. Even if the speed wasn’t an issue the SugarSync application shows me what files have been uploaded and which are pending. It really eases the mind to know which files are safe and which are not.
Understandably because Mozy’s service is for unlimited space they restrict you to one computer. That is not the case with SugarSync. After all it’s main purpose is Syncing. With SugarSync you can install the application on multiple computers, they can all upload to the same account. They can even be setup to keep certain directories in sync across computers (hence the name).
Probably one of the best things about SugarSync is its ‘web 2.0′ website. On the website you can view, download, and update files in your file set If you update the files online they are also updated on your computer next time that computer syncs. This is really great if you need to work on a file while on the road. With Mozy you can download the backup through their ‘web 1.0′ website but that is it. In addition to the website SugarSync has a mobile windows client that can view images in your backup and sync your mobile photos. You can also visit the mobile version or iphone version of the website to download other files.
Why I’m (reluctantly) sticking with Mozy.
With all this great sweetness with SugarSync (pun intended) it has one serious flaw. SugarSync lacks file versions. Imagine that you have a very important word document. One day you may open this word document and discover that all the images are replaced with big red ‘X’s. This happened to me in the past with a few large word docs. The file is corrupted, you need to restore it. If you then restore this file from SugarSync you will discover that it has the same problem. SugarSync has "backed up" your corrupted word document over your good version. Unless you keep another backup somewhere else on your files system you are screwed. But isn’t that the point of a backup system, so you don’t have to do it manually. With Mozy you can restore one of the previous versions before the corruption took hold. Ultimately, I think this makes SugarSync practically unusable as a backup system. But, as I said before SugarSync is not really intended to be a backup solution.
What I’d like to see.
I really like SugarSync. I’m tempted to use SugarSync and Mozy together as a Sync/Backup tag team but $25 a year for SugarSync and $50 a year for Mozy I can’t justify it. If SugarSync had a cheap (or free) low GB version I might continue to use it for essential files that I need to access on other computers. Instead, for now, I will use Box.net for that and Mozy for backup.
Now with that said I think SugarSync has a lot of room to grow. It feels to me that Mozy is basically use-as-is software for the foreseeable future while SugarSync is actively pursuing improvements. If they added file versions I’d jump ship today. I have a couple of other ideas that would make it the ultimate backup/syncing/mobile documents solution.
When storing files "in the cloud" security is a serious concern. SugarSync has robust security in place on their servers but what about on the users end? If you need to access a file while on the road you may be logging in on a uncontrolled desktop in a cyber cafe or maybe an open wi-fi hotspot. In this situation your password my be sniffed or key-logged. With so much of your personal data online this can be disastrous. I’d like to see a mechanism of protecting against this either with a security token or perhaps restricted throw-away logins that can only access files you have deemed accessible while on the road. I don’t see anyone doing this at this time but it is necessary if we are to feel comfortable keep private data online.
Since I don’t want to use SugarSync "on the road" I use Box.net. Box.net has what they call OpenBox services. Files uploaded to your box.net account can be viewed and edited online using any number of online services including Zoho (office documents) and Picnik (image editing). I’d like to see this type of services added to SugarSync. If SugarSync is going to become my one stop shop for online file storage this is a must. Or how about using the OpenBox platform to sync a SugarSync folder with box.net? That would be cool.
Thank you, goodnight.
If someone from Sharpcast (makers of SugarSync) see this I want to thank you for allowing me to participate in your beta. I look forward to seeing where you go from here.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Hi Jayson,
Thanks a lot for the great feedback! I am a developer on SugarSync and it’s great to hear about your experience. You make a very good point about versioning, we’re definitely going to add it to our offering. Our platform mostly supports it already, we just have to figure out how to best integrate it with UI and quota management to make the experience dead simple to use and delightful. But you can expect it in an upcoming release sometime.
Refined authentication and security, as well as integration with third-party web applications, are also something we are looking at. There are a couple ways to achieve these that we are considering. Also expect news in this area.
Thanks again for all these suggestions. Please keep asking for new features, we’ll be working on them.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Have you tried Syncplicity? It does a lot of what you’ve asked for. I’ve tried them all (FolderShare, SugarSync, DropBox, …) and so far like it the most.
June 1st, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Jean-Gabriel,
I look forward to the day you add this.
James,
I’ve been trying Syncplicity. While I don’t have any specific complaints/issues I prefer SurgarSync.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Jean-Gabriel –
I would like to see an option that STOPS a download (manaul override for, say, a 75MB file when you want the 1MB first); another way to do this – and another suggestion, by the way – is to allow PRIORITIZATION of files to be download. Thanks for letting me jump into the fray on your blog…
June 5th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Last but not least…filename SEARCH. Thanks again.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:02 am
I discovered a Memopal (http://www.memopal.com) “cutting edge solution for online
backup”
They merged online backup, online storage and file sharing services into one product.
If you try this service you will notice that (contrary to most competitors):
– You can access your files in (true) real time with a web browser
– They really offer 250 GB (some competitors offer a fake unlimited web
space, they say “fair use”)
– You can share a file or many files with the 1-click-share functionality
– Some of your files will be uploaded very very fast (turboupload)
– The service and website are in 10 different languages
I’ve also found two useful guide to online backup on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_backup
October 2nd, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Looks like Sugarsync has versioning now…
February 13th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Very nice post, thank you.
What I don’t like about Mozy and the reason why I changed it to IDrive.com is that, even that it is a backup solution, it actually syncs your files with their servers.
This is *really* a problem and a security concern because (like your example of the corrupted file) if you accidentally delete one of your important files and you don’t notice the deletion, it will be deleted from Mozy’s servers within a month or so.
If you notice the deletion, that is no problem, you just restore the file; but it you don’t notice (and it could happen) you may loose your file.
This doesn’t happen with idrive.com and it has the same or better pricing.
Thank you.-
April 20th, 2009 at 7:27 am
I’m from a competitor to both Mozy and SugarSync, but we have a different slant on the whole market.
We believe that customers need the flexibility to backup to local data stores and multiple online data stores. While our current release targets only Amazon S3, we have established the necessary framework to rapidly integrate other providers.
If you’d like to give us a try, you can download here:
http://backazon.com/downloads
We offer a free 30 day trial (Amazon charges not included), but we will work with reviewers who need more time to complete their review.
June 19th, 2009 at 7:18 am
My first day using SugarSync (free 2BG version). It’s early days I have been very impressed so far. It syncs in real time and upload speeds are fantastic. The interface looks great and is overall very user friendly app.
Previously I tried the hugely overrated Mozy whichtook forever to upload files, also they don’t provide file revisions, so your screwed if you want to retrieve older revised files going back more than 30 days. I also tried Memopal which was totally hopeless and didn’t even work, kept giving internal server error when trying to upload files….whatever that is!
SugarSync (so far) is superb IMO.
September 28th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
<< I’m tempted to use SugarSync and Mozy together as a Sync/Backup tag team but $25 a year for SugarSync and $50 a year for Mozy I can’t justify it. >>
I see this logic again and again and I just can’t understand it. You see value in the combined solution and you get utility from it, but you won’t pay $25/*YEAR* (not per month, but per year) for it?!?!
I don’t get it.
October 29th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
$25 a years is fine, $25 + $50 per year is too much.