Carbonite Online Backup
 

This is a pretty straightforward thread: does anyone have an opinion regarding the quality and value of Carbonite? They offer unlimited storage, and with 4TB+ of data, I figure $55/year is cheaper and easier than buying duplicate hard drives all the time.

So, has anyone used Carbonite? Heard anything from others who have used Carbonite? Do you have thoughts regarding online backup solutions in general?

Well, I tried to re-find a thread that I thought was started by mixedmedia on this topic, and that I also supplied a recommendation towards, but to no avail.

This one came up, though: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-...e-storage.html

My recommendation: I've have good experience with Orbitfiles and they have a ton of features for you to customzie your plan with... I've been using them for 2+ years and all my files are in working-order. The Hercules Uploader application that they provide for you is very simple to use, and can allow easy backup scheduling and uploads of files upwards of 2gigs for FREE users, so I'm guessing paying members files are umlimited. One thing to note is that the site has been renovating both itself and its services, so while they still offer a $5 a month plan, or $45 per year account as well, I don't know if either will still be available come next year (most likely only the latter plan will be gone, if at all).

Also, while they did offer 6 Gigs for free to anyone who signed up for an account, it seems they want to do away with that as well (mentioned in their blog). The good thing is they still offer a two-week trial period in which you get all the benefits of a ZEUS account before deciding whether or not to continue using said service and upgrading to monthly payments.

I'm using Mozy, which costs about the same and meets all of my needs. I understand that they cap the upload speed, however, and 4 TB might take a really long time to upload.

(quick search)

There was a good review a half-year ago in Mac|Life magazine: Online Storage Battle: Which Cloud Back-Up Service Reigns Supreme? | Mac|Life.

I wonder if they paid George Lucas for the use of the word Carbonite.

I'd be worried about such services sticking around, as well as privacy. But that's just me...

Yeah, didn't they freeze Indiana Jones in Carbonite in that one movie?

Hey, if anyone was swayed by my recommendation for Mozy, I apologize. They decided to force out anyone who really uses their unlimited service (they seem to think anyone storing over 50GB is stealing from them).

I'm trying out CrashPlan right now, and SM70, if you still have that 4TB and looking for a place to put it, they may be the place. For $130ish, they will send you a hard drive, you do a local backup to it, and send the drive back to them. After that, you can do the regular online backup.

Or, if you trust a friend, you can use their software FOR FREE, and do cross-backups using each other as your destinations, fully encrypted.

Anyone have opinions on CrashPlan before I commit to them?

ooh you can use their software with a friend for free? that's compelling!

It appears so. There are some features that you don't get (like dividing your backups into sets and giving them priority rankings), but it still looks solid. I'm still researching it, and just downloaded the 30 day trial.

It seems you can also make it work like Apple's "Time Machine", to have a local external drive with all your changes on it.

(Oh, the link is Online Data Backup & Storage – CrashPlan – Free Backup Software, Disaster Recovery for anyone interested.)

Geez how much data storage do you people need?

Hmm.... maybe If I decided to start serving movies and songs on IRC....

It took all night to backup 128GB on my local network with my Apple Time Machine. I couldn't imagine what an ISP would think, or how long it would take...

But at the same time, data organization and backups are problems. I came close to losing a hard drive last summer, and know it is easier to make a back-up before your hard drive breaks or gets corrupted, but I still don't keep up with it as much as I should.

I would agree with the above posters that are concerned about privacy and how much they are charging. I would think that the raid array, servers, internet bandwidth, salaries, power, etc to run the business would be way above $55/year.

+1 for CrashPlan. Seems to be great so far and so much less expensive than my prior provider, Amazon S3. They have clients for windows/mac/linux, and compared to carbonite (at a quick glance) they offer ongoing verification and what seems like a better interface to boot.

I did not like carbonite since it does not automatically select or allow certain file types. I used Mozi since it will automatically monitor certain directories all file types.

Real men use rsync and a friend's unused hard drive bay.

...

I've never used anything like this, as I am way too nerdy to need to outsource my backup storage. I have very little of value to contribute to this thread.

Carry on.

I work for i365, a Seagate subsidiary. Online backup is what our company does. Unfortunately we don't offer anything in the consumer end market currently. Just small to midsize businesses and larger. I'm sure you could talk with someone in our sales dept and see what we offer. I do nothing on the sales side so I've no clue about pricing. If you have any technical questions about it, then let me know. I know the software thoroughly.

Our website is Online Backups and Data Backup Software, Services, & Solutions - i365. (Previously known as EVault)


Let me know if you have any questions.