[planetf1]

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.

[planetf1]

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]

Originally Posted by planetf1

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]

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]

Originally Posted by planetf1

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]

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]

I just read about Mozy. The comparison to Carbonite makes Carbonite look pitiful. I'd demo Mozy, but my machine is in the shop atm.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by ctmagnus

I just read about Mozy. 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]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

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.