On the heels that Mozy, the popular online backup service, has stopped all consumer unlimited data plans, continued frustrations are evident still days after.  Mozy users will have new basic service at a higher cost and a cap of 50GB.

Mozy laid this at the feet of 25% of it’s users and their tendencies to store large volumes of digital media, according to Mozy’s VP of product marketing Russ Stockdale.

One interesting change that may be compelling for some is the option of a $9.99 monthly plan that extends 125GB of storage to three computers.  Under the previous offerings, each computer would have had to enrolled for an account.

This type of business response to unlimited data backup was easily predicted.  After all, similar companies have just gotten out of this business with cost being a significant factor, such as AOL’s XDrive or HP’s Upline.  Is unlimited cloud storage a sustainable business model?  Perhaps, with some caveats, and none of those are anything most people would want to run on their home systems.

Statistics should be out there to support this, but by my estimation I would tend to think that most consumer data being backed up is exactly described as digital media.  Things like music, movies, pictures, and so on take up a lot of space and the deluge of higher capacity devices and storage present one of technology’s modern dilemmas.  Most people wouldn’t want exclusions of this type of data.  And in the data center, costly technology such as deduplication would not provide any advantage in storage capacity, as these are unique files.  Unlimited data backup in the cloud at virtually non-realistic pricing would seem to not be sustainable.

However, there seems to be little shortage of providers willing to step in and throw a discount to jilted Mozy users on top of that.  Just to name one Minnesota-based Crashplan offers unlimited data plans at a 15% discount off their normal pricing just for Mozy switchers.   UK-based LiveDrive offers up a 25% discount off their unlimited service for a limited time.   When and if others will follow on the elimination of low-cost unlimited data plans will be something that will surely be worth watching.

So while frustrations mount, evidence of alternatives abound and may indicate a coming war in pricing and offerings in the months to come.  Mozy meanwhile continues to tout their offerings and will likely continue to be a leader in the market due to their large installation base.