Is Your Data Safe? Probably Not. Would You Pay $5 a Month to Protect it All? [Archive]

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Jason Dunn

05-26-2006, 04:30 PM

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.carbonite.com/aff/default.aspx?img=21&kbid=1015' target='_blank'>http://www.carbonite.com/aff/defaul...mg=21&kbid=1015</a> </div>This is a bit off-topic for this site, but I'm very passionate about the subject of data backup so please give this article a read. I've seen so many people lose their data; photos of the family reunion, important tax files, videos of the kids, and it all could have been prevented. Myself, I lost an Outlook PST file once with a lot of data in it, and I was determined to never lose data again. That's usually the way it happens - people don't care about data backup until their hard drive crashes, their laptop is stolen, or there's some sort of disaster; once they lose their data, then they realize how important it is. Imagine if you woke up tomorrow morning and all your computers and data were missing, but in their place was enough money to replace them. You still wouldn't be pleased, would you? Your data is uniquely yours, and it can't be easily replaced. I've finally found an affordable, "magic bullet" solution that I want to share with everyone. I use several methods to back up my data: first, I use a free Windows Live service named <a href="http://www.foldershare.com">FolderShare</a>, which replicates the My Documents folder across my five PCs. If one goes down, I simply move to another one and keep working. But I also have a media server with 70GB or so of music and videos, which is too much data to replicate to my laptops, so I also have an external hard drive as one level of backup, and a network-attached hard drive as a second level of backup. The key to a good backup strategy is that it's fully automated - if you have a backup solution that relies on you remembering to connect a hard drive or burn a CD/DVD, sooner or later that system is going to fail.<!> No Off-Site Backups The one flaw in my backup strategy is that all my data backups are on site, meaning in my home. If someone breaks into my house and steals all my computer gear, there goes my data. If there's a fire, there goes my data. I looked a several online data backup services, but for the amount of data I wanted to back up (at least 30 GB) it would cost me $400+ a month. For a few years I tried to get my own offsite system in place by having a friend set up an FTP server and I'd back up to it. I never got very far with that - his PC would crash, he'd lose his Internet connection, or the FTP server would break and it would take him weeks to fix it. The system just wasn't stable. I gave up and accepted the fact that local backup was the best I could do. Sure, I had a few DVDs worth of data off-site, but it wasn't automated or consistent. A few months back, I discovered a service called <a href="http://www.carbonite.com/aff/default.aspx?img=21&kbid=1015">Carbonite</a> and posted about it on <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9769">Digital Media Thoughts</a>. They offered unlimited photo backup for $29.95 a month, but it was limited to photos. I started a conversation with them, and they told me they were launching a new service that would back up an <a href="http://www.carbonite.com/aff/default.aspx?img=21&kbid=1015">unlimited amount of data for $49.95 a year</a>. 8O I was hooked on the concept, because it was so ground-breaking, and shortly thereafter I began testing the service. Almost Too Good To Be True It works really simply - in fact, they've designed this for computers users that don't know very much. Power users may be miffed at the lack of options, but the basics are there: for $5 a month (or $49.95 per year) you get a software client you install on a single PC. By default it will back up everything in your My Documents folder, but you can manually select which files and folders you want backed up by right-clicking on them. Files tagged to be backed up have a small yellow dot in the lower left-hand coner of the icon. Once that file is backed up, the dot turns green. It's a brilliant way to know your data is backed up. The client isn't perfect - there are a few minor bugs and polishing that needs to be done, but the core functionality is there. I know what you may be thinking - too good to be true? Try it out for yourself: they have a 15 day free trial that requires no credit card to activate - you just sign up with an email address and <a href="http://www.carbonite.com/aff/default.aspx?img=21&kbid=1015">download the software</a> (downloading the software helps support this site). I was determined to see if Carbonite would break with the amount of data I was uploading (sometimes "unlimited" is just a marketing term, not reality), so after I uploaded 30 GB of my documents and photos, I started a backup of an additional 70 GB worth of music and videos. Carbonite is taking it all! :way to go: Restoring the data is simple as well - it installs an icon in your My Computer folder, and you can browse and restore your uploaded data as if it were a local drive. Slick. My highest recommendation for a product is when I use it myself, and Carbonite has finally given me a viable and affordable solution to back up 100 GB of my data. This thing is so good I'm installing it on family member computers, reccomending it to clients, and ordering my friends to install it so they never complain to me about lost data. ;-) Regardless of whether or not you have a backup solution in place, I urge you to <a href="http://www.carbonite.com/aff/default.aspx?img=21&kbid=1015">give Carbonite a try</a>. The trial is free, requires no credit card to start, and it's incredibly simple to use. [Affiliate] [As a side note, if you'd like to sign up as a Carbonite affiliate yourself and promote the software to friends and family, <a href="http://affiliates.carbonite.com/up.asp?id=1015">you can sign up here</a>] UPDATE: It's come to my attention that there are, in fact, some limits to Carbonite's storage offering. From what I've been told by a Carbonite representative, "unlimited" is a marketing term that Carbonite uses to avoid questions from inexperienced computer users who don't know what "50 gigabytes" means. The <a href="http://www.carbonite.com/faqs.aspx?">Carbonite FAQ</a> says you can back up "As much as you have". But they also <a href="http://www.carbonite.com/termsofuse.aspx?">state in the fine print</a> that they will terminate the account of anyone they feel is abusing the service. What constitutes abuse? It seems, for now, anything over 125 GB will trigger an email from support stating that the user is trying to back up too much data - which is why I thought it was really "unlimited" when I had backed up my 100 GB of data and didn't get any type of warning. The 125 GB threshold is apparently a moving target that may change, and there's also some discussion from Carbonite about making a $99/year "pro" level plan with no limits. I evidently made a bad decision when I believed that "unlimited" really meant "as much data as you have". So for anyone with 125 GB of data or more, it seems Carbonite is not a good choice (for now). If you have less data than that, however, I still strongly recommend their service because for the price, there's really nothing out there that can beat it. Jason Dunn owns and operates <a href="http://www.thoughtsmedia.com">Thoughts Media Inc.</a>, a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog.

Jon Westfall

05-26-2006, 05:01 PM

I played with their service a bit a week ago, and plan on trying it out on my fileserver tonight. My question is - is there any way that Carbonite users can login and grab a specific file from their backup share, or is it all done through the client software? When restoring, can you specifiy what you want restored first, and then continue, or does it just restore from beginning to end?

Jason Dunn

05-26-2006, 05:19 PM

...is there any way that Carbonite users can login and grab a specific file from their backup share, or is it all done through the client software? When restoring, can you specifiy what you want restored first, and then continue, or does it just restore from beginning to end?

Sure, you go into your My Computer and you'll see a Carbonite icon. Double-click on it and you'll go into your online backup folder. You can right-click on any file and restore it. There's even supposed to be drag and drop support, but I think that's one of the bugs they're working on fixing. There's supposed to be a new release of the client software this week or next.

PDANEWBIE

05-26-2006, 05:38 PM

Sorry I won't put personal data on an external service no matter how many times they say they won't look at it.

I have 2 250GB HDD's. One in a fireproof media rated safe inside my regular fireproof safe. The other is in my safty deposit box that I swap out every month with the one I have in my media safe.

I would problably even go with a courier service to pickup and store offsite data in some kind of lock box storage container before I copied my data to someplace that a bunch of employees can start looking through my stuff.

You intimate manual is subject to flaws but I say data where you can't control what its being used for and who has access to it is a bigger flaw.

dugn

05-26-2006, 05:46 PM

The topic of backup is always timely - thanks for sharing this service. I’ll check it out straightaway.

As computer geeks, I'm sure we’ve all gotten that panicked call from a friend or family member who has suffered a hard disk crash. It's never been pretty - and some (if not all) of their data has almost always been lost.

The method we use in our home is to employ automated (scheduled) weekly instances of NTBACKUP (built-in WinXP) to copy down both my wife's and my local C: drive data to a separate D: drive in my machine. Then once-a-month, it wakes up to tell me to mount an external USB hard drive to back both machines up to the external store. Every month, I take this external drive to work and trade it with a friend who lives in antoher part of the city who does the exact same thing with his data.

With all of the irreplaceable financial, genealogical and family photos we store on our machine these days, ANY method that takes the data “off-site” (to a friend’s house, to a safe-deposit box, to an online share like Carbonium) is the only way to be absolutely sure you don’t suffer a stinging loss of critical data and family memories at some point in the future.

Oh yeah – another tip: It’s always safer to back up your entire %userprofile% directory and subdirectories – not just My Documents. Many programs (like Outlook and Outlook Express) store their data in these locations instead of under My Documents, so be sure not to miss key data that may be hiding in non-intuitive locations.

scgallafent

05-26-2006, 06:31 PM

It's not almost too good to be true.

There is a clause in the terms of service that you may want to pay attention to:

IF YOU ARE A PAID SUBSCRIPTION CUSTOMER, YOUR USE OF CARBONITE PRODUCTS IS SUBJECT TO CARBONITE’S "TERMINATION AND FAIR USE POLICY FOR PAID SUBSCRIPTION CUSTOMERS.” YOU WILL BE IN VIOLATION OF THIS POLICY IF, WITHIN ANY MONTH, YOUR USAGE GREATLY EXCEEDS MORE THAN THE AVERAGE LEVEL OF MONTHLY USAGE OF CARBONITE’S PAID SUBSCRIPTION CUSTOMERS GENERALLY. FOR PURPOSES OF THIS POLICY, "USAGE" MEANS THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF BANDWIDTH OR STORAGE REQUIREMENTS GENERATED BY BACKING UP YOUR COMPUTER, AS DETERMINED BY US IN OUR SOLE DISCRETION. WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO, AT ANYTIME, ENFORCE THIS POLICY IN ACCORDANCE WITH ITS TERMS (I.E., USAGE WITHIN ANY MONTH IN EXCESS OF MORE THAN THE AVERAGE LEVEL OF MONTHLY USAGE OF OUR PAID SUBSCRIPTION CUSTOMERS GENERALLY). IN THE EVENT THAT YOU ARE DEEMED TO HAVE VIOLATED THIS POLICY, A CARBONITE REPRESENTATIVE WILL ATTEMPT TO CONTACT YOU TO REACH AGREEMENT ON A REVISED PRICING PLAN WHICH WILL PERMIT YOU TO CONTINUE TO USE THIS PAID SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE. HOWEVER, CARBONITE RESERVES THE RIGHT TO TERMINATE OR SUSPEND YOUR ACCOUNT WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE IN THE EVENT OF A POLICY VIOLATION. ANY FAILURE BY CARBONITE TO ENFORCE THIS POLICY WILL NOT PRECLUDE US FROM ENFORCING IT AT ANYTIME IN THE FUTURE, WHETHER FOR PAST OR CURRENT VIOLATIONS.

If you're backing up 100GB of data, one of two things is going to happen:

1) They're going to cancel your account for violation of the terms of service or force you to upgrade to a more expensive account.

2) They're going to go out of business.

I handle off-site backup for a half dozen high volume (100GB+) users and can promise you that the numbers don't work at $5/month for that kind of volume.

Consider this:

10 users with 100GB each require 1TB of storage. If you're doing it right, you need a server with 1TB of RAID storage for those 10 users. That server is going to run you about $3,000 which means that it takes about five years to recover the cost of storage for those users before buying bandwidth.

Either the numbers won't work and they go out of business or the numbers won't work and they're going to require you to cough up more than $5/month.

There is a reason that major services charge $300-600/year for 10GB.

Jason Dunn

05-26-2006, 06:49 PM

Underwater Mike

05-26-2006, 07:04 PM

Aside from have GLOBS of data, I also wonder how long this would take, at least initially. Cox limits my upstream, so anything but a small incremental backup is going to be a major production.

scgallafent

05-26-2006, 07:05 PM

Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but it seems to be focused more on the monthly usage of bandwidth.
The policy says it applies to either bandwidth or storage requirements:
FOR PURPOSES OF THIS POLICY, "USAGE" MEANS THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF BANDWIDTH OR STORAGE REQUIREMENTS GENERATED BY BACKING UP YOUR COMPUTER, AS DETERMINED BY US IN OUR SOLE DISCRETION.

I'd think that if there's a legitimate reason for the customer adding that extra 100 GB of data, Carbonite wouldn't cancel the account.
That's really up to them whether or not they would cancel. A legitimate reason to you might not matter to them.

You realize though that 99% of Carbonite's customers are not going to have 100 GB of data to back up though, right?
Yes. But you do also realize that if you're one of the 0.5% of customers that they're losing significant amounts of money on, they're not going to complain about not having you as a customer, right?

There was some scuttlebutt a while ago about one of the cable companies canceling customers' account who were extremely high bandwidth users. One of the people involved was running a 128Kbps radio stream 24 hours a day, effectively claiming 8% of a T-1 for his radio stream. The cable company invited him to go somewhere else.

It's an interesting point though and I'm going to ask someone from Carbonite to step into the thread and clarify what that policy means.
I would be curious to see what they say. I've got some high-volume users who would be thrilled to be able to back up their data for $5/month.

stevew

05-26-2006, 09:53 PM

All I know is that I have about 70 GB total uploaded, and I'm very happy about it. :mrgreen:

Geez how long did it take you to upload 70 gig since broadband upload speeds are much, much less than download speed. I have a 10 Mbps download speed but only 512 Kbps upload.

JMac

05-26-2006, 10:16 PM

Just downloaded and installed the trial on my notebook.

It IS rather slow, but I guess it will just always run in the background, backing up round the clock.

I didn't see anything on their website regarding pricing for more than one PC. If you are backing up, say, one desktop PC and one Notebook PC, is their any difference in price? Or is it just the same for all PC's: $5.00 per month per PC?

Thanks.

BTW, thanks a lot for the tip, Jason!

Jason Dunn

05-26-2006, 11:13 PM

Geez how long did it take you to upload 70 gig since broadband upload speeds are much, much less than download speed. I have a 10 Mbps download speed but only 512 Kbps upload.

It takes a while - I can do about 100 KB/s sustained upload (120 KB/s is peak), so that's about:

...360 MB per hour
...8.64 GB per day
...60.48 GB per week

It didn't go quite that fast, but it was pretty close. I had the initial 30 GB uploaded in about a week or so.

Jason Dunn

05-26-2006, 11:16 PM

It IS rather slow, but I guess it will just always run in the background, backing up round the clock.

Yup. It's only as fast as your upstream bandwidth, but that would be the limiting factor in ANY online scenario, whether it be FTP, Web, or whatever.

I didn't see anything on their website regarding pricing for more than one PC.

I don't think there's a bulk discount, because their service is already very cheap - it's $4.16 per month if you pay for one year at a time. Tough to discount that. ;-)

Jason Dunn

05-26-2006, 11:20 PM

There was some scuttlebutt a while ago about one of the cable companies canceling customers' account who were extremely high bandwidth users. One of the people involved was running a 128Kbps radio stream 24 hours a day, effectively claiming 8% of a T-1 for his radio stream. The cable company invited him to go somewhere else.

Yes, that's not unheard of - in Calgary here if people are using up gobs of bandwidth they'll get a phone call. I've only heard of people getting the boot if they're running HPTT/FTP servers, which is a violation of the TOS. I pay an extra $10 a month for an "Extreme" package which gives me me faster upstream, downstream, and no bandwidth cap. I need it. ;-)

Deemo

05-27-2006, 12:07 AM

I have an Infrant ReadyNAS NV on order and have 4 500GB drives ready and waiting.

If anyone has any recommendations for Raid 0 1 or 5 I am open to input. 8O

Here is a review of the unit:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2723

It will also work as a media server.

bbarker

05-27-2006, 01:38 AM

PC Magazine has a comparison of online backup services in its June 6 issue. They don't mention Carbonite, but they give an Editor's Chioce rating to Mozy Remote Backup 1.6 (beta) (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1951151,00.asp) and SOS Online Backup 1.3 (beta) (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1957682,00.asp).

Each had its advantages:

Mozy
Pros
2GB of online backup free; low rates for more. Can get additional free space by referring others to the service. Tracks changes in background. Backs up automatically. Retains multiple versions of files up to 30 days.

Cons
All versions of backed-up files except the latest expire if no backup for 30 days. Limited number of restores per month. No file-sharing ability.

SOS
Pros
Handles open files. Performs continuous and scheduled backup. Backs up only differences for changed files. Stores unlimited versions. Has online access and file sharing.

Cons
Caches a full copy of every backed-up file, which uses a lot of disk space. Selection process for files to back up could be simpler.

I wonder how these compare to the features in Carbonite. The pricing is given in a table in the magazine but I can't find it online. Here are a couple of price points:

2GB
Mozy: free
SOS: $93 a year

10GB
Mozy: $30 a year
SOS: $237 a year

20GB
Mozy: $40 a year
SOS: $417 a year

The other two rated products were more costly.[/quote]

dan.carter

05-27-2006, 01:46 AM

Jon Westfall

05-27-2006, 05:45 AM

I too would never, never store my data on someone else's offsite system. If I don't care enough about my data to keep it safe, why would someone else. And the data would be private? Right? Like data stored by a government agency is safe.

About 10 years ago there was a popular offsite photo storage company that went belly up and so went many of their clients photos.

This is a bad, bad idea...

I would never store the sole copy of my data offsite, which is what your post seems to be inferring. Offsite backup has always been only 1 layer in data protection, never the sole storage location.

As far as privacy concerns goes, here is my thinking:

1. The vast majority of the things I back up, I couldn't care less if someone else saw. Photos of my family, nature, old term papers, etc... are probably of little interest to others, and if some employee there happens upon one and reads it (or even plagiarizes me for a college report), I could care less. Obviously if they use my idea to make $$$, then I'd get involved, but I doubt it would be hard to establish that I was the originator of the content in most cases.

2. The vast majority of employees at any company couldn't give a **** about my information or files. I work tech support for a webhosting company - I don't have the time or desire to look through our client's files, eventhough I have the ability. Unless they're crashing my boxes, I don't care.

3. Any information someone would want is already encrypted. My wallet file is encrypted. sensitive pictures / files / whatever are encrypted using rediculously long encryption keys, etc... If a malicious employee were running around their servers, I doubt they'd spend time hacking my ewallet when there has got to be someone who uploaded "credit_card_numbers.txt" to their store.

Maybe I'm not paranoid enough, or maybe I just feel that most of my data only has value to me (After all, the world wouldn't care if I lost a picture of my cat or an mp3 file here or there). For the extra protection and knowledge that I don't have to meticulously check my backup job statuses, I'll try it.

JMac

05-27-2006, 03:12 PM

Jon,

Agreed. Of course I wouldn't send, say, my Quicken financial data, or anything extremely personal that could lead to ID theft.

But as far as digital photos, music, etc. I have no pressing privacy concerns there.

Jason Dunn

05-27-2006, 04:04 PM

And the data would be private? Right? Like data stored by a government agency is safe.

I've asked someone from Carbonite to step into this thread and explain their privacy policy, but my understanding is that no one in the company can look at your data without a very specific procedure involving upper management.

About 10 years ago there was a popular offsite photo storage company that went belly up and so went many of their clients photos. This is a bad, bad idea...

You'll notice I never stated that using Carbonite as the ONLY backup solution was suggested - you ALWAYS need a local backup and an online backup. The online backup is just a fall-back if something happens to your local backup.

JMac

05-27-2006, 04:28 PM

Hmmm..

Maybe they can explain how they do math, also.

The backup status of my notebook that I started yesterday:

Your Backup contains: 1,140 MB (29,090 files)

Awaiting Backup: 962 MB (428 files)

Whoa - before I even got those numbers posted, it changed and is more correct now.

Your Backup contains: 1,140 MB (29,090 files)

Awaiting Backup: 1,662 MB (428 files)

Seems to take quite a while to calculate.

dan.carter

05-27-2006, 04:54 PM

Phillip Dyson

05-27-2006, 05:14 PM

I've been mulling the need for a backup strategy in my head for quite sometime. Privacy is one of my concerns too.

One possible solution that I can see is to create encrypted backup archives on my side then have those uploaded to an online backup site. Of course that means my backups are always large bulk transfers.

JMac

05-27-2006, 05:27 PM

...And we wouldn't want to store our really important information at this offsite location?...
That is correct - at least for me.

...Then what is the point? Isn't our mission critical information our first concern?...
Yes, and what is truly critical for me I can backup easily myself. Without exposing it online.

The sheer volume of my digital photos and music makes MY local backups quite large and unwieldy. Presently I backup all to an external drive, plus I make two sets of DVDs (currently 8 DVDs per backup set): one set is stored locally in my office. I keep them in a Disc Stakka unit by Imation. The other I drop off at my bank - I had a "free" safe deposit box with my accounts there that was not being used otherwise.

As I said, the critical info can easily fit on one DVD. So Carbonite is certainly worth a try for me.

encece

05-27-2006, 11:21 PM

Giving it a try. Right before my Hard Drive crashed on my laptop, I had luckily boght and copied all of my data to a 200GB External Drive.

After I bought a new internal drive for my PC and re-installed windows....I decided to not put the data back onto my PC. So I was looking for a backup solution.

This would fit the bill BUT....I am unable to backup data from my External drive. It will not accept my request to flag it for backup.

I already emailed support but has anyone else had this problem?

JMac

05-28-2006, 05:04 AM

What backup software are you using? What OS version? What kind of external drive? File system on the drive?

Gotta give us a clue!

Edit: Hey, we're neighbors! I'm right near you in Ridley Park!

ctmagnus

05-28-2006, 06:30 AM

Does it work with drive-letter integration? Ie, is it able to integrate with backup solutions such as Handy Backup?

Swami Kumaresan

05-28-2006, 02:50 PM

It's not almost too good to be true. There is a clause in the terms of service that you may want to pay attention to...

Hmm. Interesting. In my talks with Carbonite, that never came up. Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but it seems to be focused more on the monthly usage of bandwidth. As in, your first month your account usage will be high. In month three, if you were to suddenly add another 100 GB worth of data, that would cause a red flag on Carbonite's end and they'd talk to you. That doesn't seem to unusual to me, and I'd think that if there's a legitimate reason for the customer adding that extra 100 GB of data, Carbonite wouldn't cancel the account. It's an interesting point though and I'm going to ask someone from Carbonite to step into the thread and clarify what that policy means.

All I know is that I have about 70 GB total uploaded, and I'm very happy about it. :mrgreen:

(You realize though that 99% of Carbonite's customers are not going to have 100 GB of data to back up though, right? They'll lose money on someone like me, but make money on someone like my in-laws who only have about 3 GB worth of data to back up. That's how companies like this make money, it all averages out.)

I work for Carbonite and Jason is generally correct. Frankly, we don't really want his 70GB :wink: but we're happy he told his in-laws about us. At this point our average user has about 5GB of data. Carbonite is perfect for the home user, student, road warrior etc. who has about 1-15GB of data they need to back up. Does that mean we'll cancel Jason's account? Of course not. We'll lose money on a few people, make money on the rest.

Every now and then we get someone who tries to send us 300GB or something - they usually quit when they realize their cable modem is going to take 9 months to complete their first backup! We probably wouldn't keep an account like that around today at $5/mo. In the future, since storage and comms cost are dropping so rapidly, larger users will become more profitable. So in a year, when Jason's account is 120GB, our costs would have fallen to compensate. (If you just did the math on 70, 120, 1 year etc...I made those up :)

So why do we say unlimited storage? Is it a trick? No, it really isn't. Why would we say unlimited only to cancel accounts right after someone signs up. THE REASON we say unlimited is that the average PC user (none of you is probably in this group) doesn't really know what 1GB is. That's why Apple markets the iPod saying "stores 10,000 songs". We want to keep Carbonite as simple as possible. Simplicity and price are our advantage. If a user has to worry about tiered pricing etc. it just adds complication which turns most people off.

JMac

05-28-2006, 05:17 PM

Hi Swami.

I'm using a trial for two or three days now, on my notebook, and it's still at 93%, so you're correct, it would take several months for a 100 - 120 GB backup.

I also notice that it initially throws an error when I start my notebook up, then resumes working normally. I would guess that it is activated too early in the startup sequence - trying to back up before my internet connect is fully up.

I also notice that it is difficult to see if it is truly backing up what I requested. It claims to have about 2.5 GB for a total backup size, but I am trying to backup about 8 GB. Unless this is due to a compression factor.

Thanks for such a useful product, Swami. Much appreciated!

JMac

05-28-2006, 08:54 PM

OK, I seem to have uncovered a major issue with Carbonite. At least it's a major issue on my system.

I've been using the Carbonite trial on my notebook PC, which is connected to my desktop PC wirelessly via my home network, for a few days now. At the same time, my desktop PC has suddenly been throwing error messages at me and refusing to respond. (I was really glad for a while that I am getting a new PC built and it will be ready in about two weeks.)

The desktop would stop responding - first, I cannot open any new programs. Then it won't open any new Windows dialogs at all. After a few restarts I would finally get it going, but I could not diagnose the issue.

Event viewer showed the same few errors over and over: all with the event ID 32 or 59. They read as follow: Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC80.MFCLOC could not be found and Last Error was The referenced assembly is not installed on your system.

Resolve Partial Assembly failed for Microsoft.VC80.MFCLOC. Reference error message: The referenced assembly is not installed on your system.

Generate Activation Context failed for C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS\x86_Microsoft.VC80.MFC_1fc8b3b9a1e8e3b_8.0.50727.42 x-ww_dec6ddd2\MFC80U.DLL. Refernce error message: The operation completed successfully.

I researched the errors and found that they refer to RAS and/or PPP problems, but only for Windows Server 2003-based computers with Terminal Server enabled. Which was confusing as I am running XP Pro on both my PC's.

After several iterations of this problem suddenly appearing and then disappearing just as quickly, it finally dawned on me that this was only a problem while my notebook was up and running - and of course connected to Carbonite. As soon as I shut down the notebook, these errors on my desktop PC would immediately resolve.

I can replicate this at will; Start desktop PC, all is well. Start notebook PC, Carbonite starts, and the desktop goes to crap. Shut down the notebook PC, the desktop suddenly is fine. Start the notebook and shut down Carbonite and the desktop first goes nuts, then is cured as soon as Carbonite is shut down.

This drove me crazy... OK, crazIER - because the special hotfixes available from MS are only to be used on a Windows Server 2003-based OS, and I at first was not suspecting a connection on my networked notebook PC to cause such massive issues on my desktop PC!

I haven't notified Carbonite about this yet, but I will right after I post this. More important to let you all know about it first.

Has anyone else run into any such strange problems on a PC that is networked to the PC you are running Carbonite on?

Jason Dunn

05-28-2006, 09:55 PM

The backup status of my notebook that I started yesterday:
Your Backup contains: 1,140 MB (29,090 files)
Awaiting Backup: 962 MB (428 files)
Whoa - before I even got those numbers posted, it changed and is more correct now.

There are some bugs in their client software related to calculating backup size - there's supposed to be a new release of the software coming out soon that will address that.

Jason Dunn

05-28-2006, 10:00 PM

Jason Dunn

05-28-2006, 10:04 PM

So, let me see if I understand this. No one at the company can look at data without upper management. And I'm supposed to believe that my data is more secure being looked at by upper management? Why would anyone in the company EVER be allowed to access MY data for ANY reason?

No no no, I explained that badly. I'll ask Swami to explain, but my understanding is that your data is completedly encrypted, and that no one can access it UNLESS you, the user, somehow forget your password and can't authenticate to get at your data, and you contact Carbonite and say "I need my data" THEN it kicks off some sort of a procedure whereby someone at Carbonite can decrypt your data. I'm sure Swami can explain it better...

Here's a Q&A from their FAQ (http://www.carbonite.com/faqs.aspx):

Is Carbonite really secure? Can anyone else, such as employees of Carbonite, see my backed up data?
Carbonite encrypts the data on your PC before it leaves your PC, so it just becomes a mishmash of unintelligible ones and zeros. In addition, the encrypted data is encrypted again using the same kind of SSL connection that most online merchants use for credit card information.So it’s really double encrypted. This combination makes our security comparable to what you would get with online banking or online bill-paying services – pretty strong stuff.So long as you do not disclose your password, your data is safe. If a court order forced us to turn over your backup files, they’d have a very hard time breaking the encryption.Frankly, it would be a lot easier to get a search warrant and take computer! Our reputation and business depends on protecting your data, so it’s a top priority for our engineers.

Jason Dunn

05-28-2006, 10:12 PM

Does it work with drive-letter integration? Ie, is it able to integrate with backup solutions such as Handy Backup?

What do you mean by "drive letter integration" - you mean like network-mapped drives? No. Carbonite isn't going to let someone back up their entire network of computers for $5 a month. ;-)

JMac

05-28-2006, 10:29 PM

I've been using the Carbonite trial on my notebook PC, which is connected to my desktop PC wirelessly via my home network, for a few days now...Has anyone else run into any such strange problems on a PC that is networked to the PC you are running Carbonite on?

That's quite a bizarre problem - you say your laptop is connected wirelessly to your PC, rather than a router. Does that mean you're doing a peer to peer ad hoc network and your laptop is using your desktop PC for Internet access? I wanted to clarify that point before going any further, because that type of setup is certainly not "normal". ;-)

No, Jason - please check my post:
...I've been using the Carbonite trial on my notebook PC, which is connected to my desktop PC wirelessly via my home network, for a few days now. ...
It is connected wirelessly via the home network - which is through a Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Broadband router

I have Carbonite installed on a Windows XP Professional computer and have had no problems with any of my other machines on the same network, though they're all connected to the same router.

Well, what I posted earlier is exactly what I am seeing. And it is reproducible every time. Without the notebook powered on, the desktop problem does not exist; with the notebook started but Carbonite not connected, the problems on the desktop do not exist; but as soon as I permit Carbonite to connect the desktop starts choking with the same error messages every time.

I just sat here at my desk with the desktop PC on in front of me and the notebook PC in my lap. I replicated it four separate times between reading your post and posting this. There is no mistake here. Direct correlation.

Perhaps something in my particular system configuration is just different enough from yours to cause a different reaction; my MSSQL Server or something else along that line.

But Carbonite is defintely the source of the error messages and the malfunctioning of my desktop PC.

Just because you are not having a problem with your setup does not certify that one does not exist! :wink:

Equipment:

HP Pavilion Desktop PC, XP Pro w/SP2 and all MS updates, Intel Pentium 2.8 GHz Dual Core processor w/HT, 1.5 GB RAM.

Dell Inspiron 8600 Notebook PC, XP Pro w/SP2 and all MS updates, Intel Pentiom Centrino 1.4 GHz processor w/1MB cache, MICRO FLIP CHIP PIN GRID ALIGNMENT, onboard wireless chip but connecting instead with a Linksys WPC11 wireless notebook adapter card.

Linksys Model WRT54G Ver 5 Wireless-G Broadband Router w/ WPA-TKIP, NAT, & SPI security .

Jason Dunn

05-28-2006, 10:59 PM

Definitely sounds like a problem for you and tech support to debug, I've never heard of such a thing...

Jason Dunn

05-29-2006, 03:40 PM

JMac

05-29-2006, 06:25 PM

External drives:

http://www.carbonite.com/faqs.aspx#what_does_it_backup

"Carbonite does not currently back up files that are larger than 2GB in size, removable hard drives (e.g., USB drives) or mapped network drives."

My apologies for not realizing this sooner, I would have mentioned it in my article if I had known. I don't keep any unique data on external hard drives (they're more prone to failure in general than internal drives), I only use them for backup, so this issue never came up in my testing. I personally think it's a little weak for Carbonite not to back up external drives, unlimited should be unlimited.
Thast may well have been the reason for the backup size calculation difference in my case, Jason. My notebook PC has a 40 GB internal, and a 40 GB Seagate external drive - I have mostly images and audio on the external drive and was including that in my backup.

bbarker

06-01-2006, 01:24 AM

External drives:

http://www.carbonite.com/faqs.aspx#what_does_it_backup

"Carbonite does not currently back up files that are larger than 2GB in size, removable hard drives (e.g., USB drives) or mapped network drives."

My apologies for not realizing this sooner, I would have mentioned it in my article if I had known. I don't keep any unique data on external hard drives (they're more prone to failure in general than internal drives), I only use them for backup, so this issue never came up in my testing. I personally think it's a little weak for Carbonite not to back up external drives, unlimited should be unlimited.

Hmm...because my main computer has a relatively small hard drive, I have set up My Documents on an external drive. The drive letter is G:, but when I click My Documents I automatically go there because Windows XP knows that's where My Documents is.

Will I be able to back up my files located there?

Jason Dunn

06-01-2006, 03:57 AM

Hmm...because my main computer has a relatively small hard drive, I have set up My Documents on an external drive...Will I be able to back up my files located there?

No, unfortunately you can't. :-( Here's another alternative, I don't know how good it is: http://www.jungledisk.com/

bbarker

06-01-2006, 06:03 AM

Thanks Jason.

pmgibson

06-02-2006, 07:38 PM

Jon,

Agreed. Of course I wouldn't send, say, my Quicken financial data, or anything extremely personal that could lead to ID theft.

Ah, but that Quicken file is one of two absolutely critical files. The other being the Outlook PST file.

So online backup is the best way to backup the critical Quicken file, but then privacy/security could become an issue.

Maybe I need to look into Jasons "FTP server at a friend's house" idea more. :?

Jason Dunn

06-02-2006, 08:08 PM

Ah, but that Quicken file is one of two absolutely critical files. The other being the Outlook PST file.

Password protect it then. :-) I imagine Quicken's file encryption is decent, I have a password on mine.

Swami never came back to clarify this, but no Carbonite employee can access the data on their servers UNLESS you contact them because you've lost your password.

sigother

06-03-2006, 04:39 PM

I tried the Carbonite service based on this article. Nice idea however I ran into a couple of problems.
1. After 5 days the service had still not backed up my 20GB of data. I have a high speed cable modem. Maybe it is just not practical to use this service with this amount of data and this bandwidth.
2. My bigger issue was if I did have to restore, it looks like it would take several days to reload my data. For me, that would not be an acceptable backup solution.
3. After installing the service, I had 2 BSOD - no really! I have not seen a BSOD on XP for months. I also had problems accessing the files in a zip archive. I could not extract some files and some were tagged as needing a password even though that should not have been the case. I can not say for sure that Carbonite caused this, however ...
At this point, I uninstalled Carbonite. No more blue screens and my zip archives worked fine.
Maybe this is a coincidence but for me not worth the risk.

Jason Dunn

06-04-2006, 01:14 AM

1. After 5 days the service had still not backed up my 20GB of data. I have a high speed cable modem. Maybe it is just not practical to use this service with this amount of data and this bandwidth.

Well...I guess that's a matter of understanding bandwidth. Your "high speed" cable modem is probably about 800 KB/s downloading, but only 64 KB/s uploading. So if you have 20 gigs of data, you can do the math. ;-) Perhaps I wasn't obvious enough in my article about the speed limitations, my apologies for that.

2. My bigger issue was if I did have to restore, it looks like it would take several days to reload my data. For me, that would not be an acceptable backup solution.

But what were you expecting? I think perhaps you may be thinking of online back up as being the PRIMARY method of data backup - it should not be. A local hard drive (external or secondary internal) should always be the #1 choice for backups, because of exactl your complaints: speed. The online backup is a fallback in case something happens to your primary backup. Yes, it has some limitations, but I think you'll be glad to live with them if it's the ONLY place you can get your data from. ;-)

3. After installing the service, I had 2 BSOD

Yikes! That is indeed bad news...I haven't had any such problems, but every machine is different. Stupid unstable XP! :roll:

trashpicker

06-20-2006, 12:14 AM

I'm a new Carbonite user referred there by Chris Pirillo's blog (http://chris.pirillo.com/2006/06/01/internet-hard-drive/) and wanted to share some things here for the people who may be considering Carbonite.

I have about 130GB to backup. Admittedly, this is a huge block of data but Carbonite advertises themselves as "unlimited" and shows 40GB on their homepage. After about 5 days of backup, I got an email from Carbonite telling me "Your account has been disabled temporarily. You must either reduced [sic] your pending backup size so that it falls below 100GB or cancel your account."

I did neither but emailed their support with my concerns regarding the vagarities (http://www.carbonite.com/faqs.aspx?#how_much_storage) of the TOS (previously mentioned in this thread) and advertising and asked them if there was a second tier plan. I haven't heard back. My backup continues.

Which brings me to my second point - speed. I'm a Fiber Optic user and get very high upload speeds but have been disappointed by Carbonite's speed which to my mind does not take advantage of available upload bandwidth. I'm 12 days in of nearly continuous uptime with minimal interruptions, and only about 30% complete.

These things being said, I LOVE the interface and the concept is awesome. I have never seen anything simpler for backup and I sincerely hope that they can work out the business to meet all customers' needs. I paid for my year today despite the earlier email and I guess we'll see what happens.

I'd definitely recommend Carbonite to family users who need simple, no-hassle backup and hope that they can find space in their model for users like me.

See also this guy's experience (http://wujimon.com/2006/06/05/the-offsite-solution/trackback/) and this other post by another guy (http://www.nickstarr.com/2006/06/02/online-backups/)

Jason Dunn

06-20-2006, 12:31 AM

I have about 130GB to backup. Admittedly, this is a huge block of data but Carbonite advertises themselves as "unlimited" and shows 40GB on their homepage. After about 5 days of backup, I got an email from Carbonite telling me "Your account has been disabled temporarily. You must either reduced [sic] your pending backup size so that it falls below 100GB or cancel your account."

Hmm. That's not cool at all - if you had told me you were trying to back up your 2TB drive array maybe I'd cut Carbonite some slack, but 130 GB isn't far off my own 100 GB of data, so if they're threatening to cancel your account that means if I wasn't an affiliate they'd do the same to me. Preferential treatment is not cool - I wouldn't have recommended this service so strongly if I knew by "unlimited" they meant "anything under 100 GB". I've emailed my contact at Carbonite though and have asked for his thoughts on this, so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt for now and hope that this isn't them changing their stance. :?

trashpicker

06-27-2006, 03:39 AM

Gave up a couple of days ago - it was just going so slowly that I couldn't take it. Sent an email requesting cancellation and haven't heard back yet.

Jason Dunn

06-27-2006, 05:36 AM

Gave up a couple of days ago - it was just going so slowly that I couldn't take it.

Maybe this is a stupid question, but has your hard drive sent you an email that it's planning on crashing or something? ;-) I don't get the "it's too slow" complaint - where does your data have to be? It took me about two or three weeks to do my first back up of 30 GB. Maybe I didn't notice/care as much because it's running on my MCE computer, not my main workstation.

BTW, I updated my article with a footnote about the somewhat confusing nature of "unlimited" backup. It seems Carbonite still has to work out some kinks in their service plan and explanation of what they really offer.

trashpicker

06-28-2006, 08:47 PM

has your hard drive sent you an email that it's planning on crashing or something?

In all honesty, the slowness complaint was a combination of the backup speed and the absence of response to my email to Carbonite regarding the "unlimited" backup. I'd be more comfortable taking the time (leaving my machine up 24/7) to back up the full 130GB if they had gotten back to me to say yea or nay, but I've heard nothing. I don't want to be using the electricity to do the back up for the next X weeks if they turn around and close my account (it's not that I'm cheap, I prefer not to use the natural resources for nothing).

Also, I haven't heard back from them yet re my cancellation request. Still love the idea/interface but you can add responsiveness to my list of dislikes (with speed).

Jason Dunn

06-28-2006, 10:05 PM

I don't want to be using the electricity to do the back up for the next X weeks if they turn around and close my account (it's not that I'm cheap, I prefer not to use the natural resources for nothing).

Ok, understood - you're right, if you're paying for a service, they should be replying to you as a customer.

trashpicker

06-30-2006, 10:05 PM

...130 GB isn't far off my own 100 GB of data, so if they're threatening to cancel your account that means if I wasn't an affiliate they'd do the same to me. Preferential treatment is not cool - I wouldn't have recommended this service so strongly if I knew by "unlimited" they meant "anything under 100 GB". I've emailed my contact at Carbonite though and have asked for his thoughts on this, so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt for now and hope that this isn't them changing their stance. :?

Have you heard back from them?

Jason Dunn

06-30-2006, 11:10 PM

Have you heard back from them?

In my discussions with Swami from Carbonite, it seems that their re-thinking the limitations - he talked about an option whereby they'd allow more than 125 GB of data, but they'd cap the upload speed (which they're supposed to do now). And they're talking about offering a "pro" plan for $99 a year where there would be no upload limit. I think in many ways Carbonite is still figuring out how they want to offer this service...in a way, that's a good thing because it means they're open to feedback. But in another way, it's bad, because they should have easy to follow rules for their customers to read.

trashpicker

07-10-2006, 01:44 PM

trashpicker

07-11-2006, 04:14 AM

Just a quick update - asked them to close my account over two weeks ago and it has not been closed. Just sent them another email (since there's no published phone number that I can find) asking for account closure.

They just got back to me:

"Per your request, we have deleted your account and your refund has been expedited. The deletion process can take up to an hour. Again, I apologize that we did not receive your original email.

Thank you"

That's nice. I guess they were either deluged or the email functionality of the console is freaky. Either way, an improvement.

karen

08-07-2006, 05:55 PM

Last week Carbonite had a technical glitch (upgrade, they said) and my computer client was unable to connect to do the backup ups. Several days have passed, but my client is stuck on "starting backup", but nothing is backing up.

Anyone else having the same problems?

Karen

Jason Dunn

08-08-2006, 12:52 AM

Karen - my machine isn't having any trouble connecting. Have you tried emailing their tech support? What did they say?

karen

08-08-2006, 04:13 AM

Karen - my machine isn't having any trouble connecting. Have you tried emailing their tech support? What did they say?

No response yet.

K

karen

08-09-2006, 01:42 PM

Swami Kumaresan

08-09-2006, 08:58 PM

..and still no response from customer support.

We also use Iron Mountain for our backups on our servers. Response time from them is usually within an hour, not days.

I'm thinking, now that I've paid for a full year, that Carbonite's service is targeted at home users who need to backup all joke e-mails from their friends.

You can't have multi-day lag times in failed backups and restores -- what's the point of online backup if you are down for a week?

Karen

Oopss!! Looks like we dropped the ball on your email, I'm sorry about that. We were written up a couple of weeks ago by the AP - the story was picked up by 70 news outlets including the NY Times, Washington Post, CNN.com...etc. We ended up with an unexpectedly large number of signups all of a sudden and support fell behind. If you email marketing/at/carbonite.com i'll have your support request handled immediately. We're bulking up our support team later this month so we won't run into the same issue again!

-Swami

planetf1

10-25-2006, 10:05 PM

Have just stumbled across carbonite, and it looks great (I'd probably backup around 15Gb).. Just started a trial.

But noticed on the "buy" options I only get a choice of 1 or 2 years prepaid. Have they stopped the pay monthly option? I'm intrigued enough to want to try say 3 months, but not sure if a year's for me yet.

Jason Dunn

10-25-2006, 10:09 PM

But noticed on the "buy" options I only get a choice of 1 or 2 years prepaid. Have they stopped the pay monthly option? I'm intrigued enough to want to try say 3 months, but not sure if a year's for me yet.

Hmm. Looks that way. They were still figuring things out when I wrote the article, and they're still basically a start-up company. I guess they figure the trial is sufficient for most people to figure out of they like the service. I've been using it now for about six months, and it's rock solid. Thankfully I haven't had a complete hard drive failure when I've needed to use it though...

planetf1

10-25-2006, 10:28 PM

This is a fast changing market. Use of Amazon's S3 service is interesting - through a few intermediaries, ElephantDrive is also an unknown, who knows when google will come out, so whilst carbonite looks very very interesting, I'm just not happy to commit to a year up front.

Also here in the UK BT (telco) have just launched their service - a little more pricey, but 20Gb of storage + backup sw comes in at 4.99 UKP which is probably just fine for me -- see http://www.btdigitalvault.bt.com/

Jason Dunn

10-25-2006, 10:55 PM

This is a fast changing market...

Sure, I hear you, but in the meantime your data is vulnerable (or perhaps not). But whatever works for you! :-)

planetf1

11-14-2006, 11:50 PM

I did go for it. 1 annoying problem though -- cannot persuade carbonite to go more than 30-50% of myt available upstream bandwidth (tested with ftp to other sites). This is even when system is idle.

I have 736 kbps upload, but can only reach a peak of just under 300 kbps. mostly I get around 240.

Frustrating when you have 24 Gb to backup.

So ~ 1 month later I'm nearly there.....

ctmagnus

12-27-2006, 11:34 PM

Jason Dunn

12-27-2006, 11:56 PM

I just read about (http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2006/12/online_backup_o.html) Mozy (http://mozy.com/). The comparison to Carbonite makes Carbonite look pitiful. I'd demo Mozy, but my machine is in the shop atm.

Hrm. Mozy does look pretty interesting! I'll have to take a look. I wonder if they upstream bandwidth throttle? That's my frustration at the moment - that Carbonite won't accept my data fast enough!

ctmagnus

08-12-2007, 05:48 AM

I wonder if they upstream bandwidth throttle?

I quite often hit 500kbps uploading, and I have a feeling that the reason I haven't had anything faster is due to my ISP's upload limit.