[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by hans

So how can Carbonite do this for $29.95 for a year? I'm skeptical, too good to last.

It's all about the math - online storage companies such as iBackup have been probably been gouging customers, new companies such as Smugmug and Carbonite know that if they pay $300 for a 500 GB hard drive, odds are good that most customers will only have a few GB of images. They make money on those people. They probably lose money on people like you with 40+ GB of data, but most people don't have that many photos. So it's all about the averages...

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by hans

So how can Carbonite do this for $29.95 for a year? I'm skeptical, too good to last.

It's all about the math - online storage companies such as iBackup have been probably been gouging customers, new companies such as Smugmug and Carbonite know that if they pay $300 for a 500 GB hard drive, odds are good that most customers will only have a few GB of images. They make money on those people. They probably lose money on people like you with 40+ GB of data, but most people don't have that many photos. So it's all about the averages...

[hans]

If what you say is right, then it costs about $.60 per gigabyte for disk. So it's costing Carbonite about $25 in disk space to store my data. At $29.95 a year, maybe they break even the first year, but they can make money in subsequent years. We'll see if Carbonite shuts me off because they're losing money on me. Be interesting to see. Meanwhile, it just hums along in the background doin' its thing. I'll keep my fingers crossed. BTW, do you think they are really encrypting my files? Is there any way to verify that?

[swamik]

Originally Posted by brian_r_baker

I have been using Backup Solutions for a couple years. I have 4GB of any type of data at $14.95 a month. I use it for my personal photo collection as well as other important (work-related) files. I wouldn't mind finding a cheaper service though!!

Well, you're in luck. I run marketing at Carbonite - we haven't decided exact pricing yet, but in May we will launch our comprehensive backup product. We'll backup all the data on your PC for ~$5 per month, unlimited capacity.

[swamik]

Originally Posted by hans

I tried it with 43GB of photos and it worked like a champ. It also backed up a lot of "junk" pictures, such as clip art. But since i'm not paying by the GB, I don't really care. I found our that you can easily exclude folders that you don't want to back up, but probably nobody will bother.

Exactly. Your "junk" is a bunch of small (tens of kbytes) picture files that various apps use for icons or whatever. No harm in backing them up - it adds minutes to the (background, silent) backup process. And yes, all at a fixed cost.

[swamik]

Originally Posted by mathiaspettersson@msn.com

I could stand $15 for an unlimited plan, no filetype restrictions and a good desktop app, but 4 gigs would last 5 minutes.

Malte

***long message quote trimmed by mod JD***

Yes, and note he says $15/MONTH! Carbonite is $30/YEAR. Our full backup product (all your data, not just pics) will probably be under $60/YEAR - launch in late Arpil / early May.

Email me if you want to test the beta!

[swamik]

Originally Posted by hans

Yeh, it took close to two weeks before it was all backed up over my DSL, but it's all there now, and new pictures seem to get backed up in a few minutes, as you would expect. It probably would have gone a little faster if I hadn't been using my PC a lot because Carbonite seems to pause when you're using the PC -- their FAQ says that's because they don't want to slow down your PC or internet connection. Hmm? I'm actually pretty amazed this really works -- I expected this would have blown up or something by now. I don't get their pricing. I've been paying iBackup $49.95 a month for 25GB. So how can Carbonite do this for $29.95 for a year? I'm skeptical, too good to last.

Well, Hans, we think you've been paying WAY too much. The bottom line is that storage and communication costs have been falling rapidly, but online backup vendors have not passed on the savings to the consumer. That's why almost no one uses online backup. We hope to change that.

As for how we do it profitably at such low prices...well that's the secret sauce :-) You'll just have to trust us that we wouldn't have gotten into this business if we thought we couldn't make money.

[flooder]

Does the Photo Version still exist or on the the "all PC' version?

I did the trial but my PC screwed up the update and the 'right click' to exclude folders from backup so I disabled it. Now I want to buy it and there is only the 'whole PC'

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by flooder

Does the Photo Version still exist or on the the "all PC' version? I did the trial but my PC screwed up the update and the 'right click' to exclude folders from backup so I disabled it. Now I want to buy it and there is only the 'whole PC'

I think they've phased it out the photo only version and now they back up everything for one price. I've signed up as an affiliate and have been using the product quite a bit lately:

http://affiliates.carbonite.com/up.asp?id=1015

I'll be posting about it on the front page again soon...