Carbonite.com
As long as I’m going around talking about services and things that I use, I might as well talk a little bit about my new backup solution.
As you may or may not be aware, I recently suffered through an untimely loss (of my computer). Attempts to resurrect the machine met with limited success. I basically bought myself enough time to order a new laptop and work towards organizing my files as best I could for transfer to the new machine.
Unfortunately during the course of this effort, I discovered that my previous backup solution had proved to be less than robust. Fortunately for me, obsessive compulsive behavior sometimes has its benefits. My backup had a backup (sort of) and I’m reasonably certain that my most if not all of my files are currently intact either on this machine or on my NAS appliance.
But this led me to think…maybe I should get something a little more robust.
For the past several weeks now I’d been hearing commercials for several online backup systems, most notably Mozy and Carbonite. Both are systems that install small lightweight products on a computer and backup designated software to a secure offsite location. (I’ve heard it’s the same location that our former Vice President spent most of his undisclosed time during the first few years of Dubya’s presidency.) Both try to be as simple as possible to use and as minimally invasive as possible. They both cost about the same amount of money (somewhere north of $50/year), though Mozy has a month-to-month service and Carbonite locks you into a year-by-year contract. Ultimately they both do the same thing for the same amount of money. The reviews were almost entirely a wash. I think some people tended to like Carbonite’s customer service a little better. Also, there are some technical reasons that I found myself preferring Carbonite over Mozy, but I won’t bore you with details.
I gave Carbonite a shot, and recently locked myself into a three year contract. (There was a discount…I got the thing at 30% off listed price).
I find the process of the initial backup to be fascinating. The software has been working for a week or so now. It’s slowly uploaded 93 GB of data, with another 68 GB to go. I had to tweak the settings to include certain image, movie, and music files that were part of the default set, but I found it to be pretty easy to do. Plus apparently they’ve started offering remote access to files, which means I don’t have to be in the middle of a restore to bring up my backed up files. I can go through the website and download a copy to whatever computer I’m on. So far, it’s been pretty nice.
Which brings me to my moment of shilling. Carbonite has a “refer-a-friend” feature. If I refer you to their service and you sign up for a contract, they give you a free month and they give me a free month. If you’re interested, contact me via my email address (if you have it), or as a comment on this post, and I’ll send you the link.
Lesson learned: you can never be too careful.
