05-26-2006, 04:30 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Is Your Data Safe? Probably Not. Would You Pay $5 a Month to Protect it All?
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 FolderShare, 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 Carbonite and posted about it on Digital Media Thoughts. 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 unlimited amount of data for $49.95 a year. 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 download the software (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 give Carbonite a try. 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, you can sign up here]
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 Carbonite FAQ says you can back up "As much as you have". But they also state in the fine print 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 Thoughts Media Inc., 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.
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05-26-2006, 05:01 PM
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Executive Editor, Android Thoughts
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 3,233
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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?
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Dr. Jon Westfall, MCSE, MS-MVP
Executive Editor - Android Thoughts
News Editor - Windows Phone Thoughts
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05-26-2006, 05:19 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jon Westfall
...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?
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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.
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05-26-2006, 05:38 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 359
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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.
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05-26-2006, 05:46 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 36
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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.
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05-26-2006, 06:31 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 2
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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:
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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.
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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.
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05-26-2006, 06:49 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by scgallafent
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...
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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.)
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05-26-2006, 07:04 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 444
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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.
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05-26-2006, 07:05 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 2
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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but it seems to be focused more on the monthly usage of bandwidth.
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The policy says it applies to either bandwidth or storage requirements:
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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.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
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.
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That's really up to them whether or not they would cancel. A legitimate reason to you might not matter to them.
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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
You realize though that 99% of Carbonite's customers are not going to have 100 GB of data to back up though, right?
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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.
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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
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.
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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.
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05-26-2006, 09:53 PM
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Theorist
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 281
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
All I know is that I have about 70 GB total uploaded, and I'm very happy about it. :mrgreen:
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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.
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