carbonite.com – beware of

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I don’t know if you have had any feedback on the back-up program with Carbonite.com, who recently blanketed the media with emails advertising a free two week trial.

I signed up for it, because I liked the idea of having the back-up online, being kept up-dated constantly. However, I found it to be impractable to have to check all of my folders to see which files were not backed-up. It does however allow one to manually back them up, but the hassle is not worth it. My computer guru also stated that several of his business customers found it too difficult to download the files.

Therefore I uninstalled the program, and when I re-booted up I could not get online. The computer said that the network controller was not available. I tried everything such as updating the drivers with my laptop, and gave up. I took it to the shop, and they said it worked okay there, but again would not when I connected up at home. After another trip to the shop, I got up in the morning surprised that it went online as usual!

THEN, I noted an email stating that the trial period was over, and my subscription was cancelled since I did not subscribe to the program.

This was just too coincidental twice, once at the moment that I uninstalled the program, and the other at the moment they cancelled me.

(I am running Windows XP, with plenty of speed, RAM, and storage.)

I just thought that you might want to keep your ears open, and possibly put out a note which may save other a lot of grief and time.

Thanks for your good work,

Howard “duke” Holtz

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Duke,

You don’t have to check to see what has been backed-up. Designate directories and all files in there are backed-up either when they are created or when modified. Each file that has been backed-up will have a small green arrow next to it. If it hasn’t been backed-up yet the arrow won’t be there yet.

Carbonite is a great tool – for both the geek and the non-techy person (like my mother-in-law). I know her data and photo’s are backed-up for the day when she is so infected with malware I have to reinstall Windows.

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My main point is that when I uninstalled the program, Carbonite’s program, or settings, or whatever, prevented my from getting online. In the shop with a connection on a different IP address it worked fine. Then days later when Carbonite cancelled my free subscription it worked fine on my home network again.

I was just trying to let others know that there might be other problems too.

Duke,

You don’t have to check to see what has been backed-up. Designate directories and all files in there are backed-up either when they are created or when modified. Each file that has been backed-up will have a small green arrow next to it. If it hasn’t been backed-up yet the arrow won’t be there yet.

Carbonite is a great tool – for both the geek and the non-techy person (like my mother-in-law). I know her data and photo’s are backed-up for the day when she is so infected with malware I have to reinstall Windows.

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I use Carbonite as well and am happy with it. However, if you are using Hughesnet for your internet, be aware that you will exceed your usage limit real quick with this program, I have had to limit it to one day a week backup, with only limited hours, the hours that Hughesnet allows free up and download. Otherwise it is a great program, and I know my files are safely backed up.

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As a very old computer tech, who has set up literally hundreds of backup schemes for home, business and corporations, I find On-Line backups to be seriously lacking. The whole subject of Internet backups seems a bit on the ridiculous side.
Q: When your internal HD has gone up in a puff of smoke, how are you going to restore your OS+Data to a brand new HD, when the OS is GONE and the data is on a server, somewhere off in space?

A: You many have to call on a tech, if you’re not technically adept yourself, but if you have all your stuff on a backup drive, or DVD’s, the restore process to get right back where you were before the HD took a dump, will only take a few minutes or an hour or so.

In the past 20 years or so, I’ve had at least five HD’s crash on me, but I’ve never lost even one important data file.

Backup software is available from several different sources, FREE, if you just look for it.
Acronis True Image is a good example. It’s free with Seagate’s “Sea Tools” and Maxtor’s “Max Blast”.
Make the recovery CD and you’re good to go.

Cheers mates!
The Doctor

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A: You many have to call on a tech, if you’re not technically adept yourself, but if you have all your stuff on a backup drive, or DVD’s, the restore process to get right back where you were before the HD took a dump, will only take a few minutes or an hour or so.

If your computer and backup drive are stolen or if you have a fire and they are literally fried, local backup will not save you. Offsite backup, in addition to, a local backup ensures your data will be safe. Some people don’t have anything of value to backup and never mess with it. Others have thousands of photo’s or small business records that they just can’t lose, so an offsite backup really makes sense and Carbonite makes it automatic. For both the technically challenged and the experienced user it’s a terrific tool.

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If your computer and backup drive are stolen or if you have a fire and they are literally fried, local backup will not save you. Offsite backup, in addition to, a local backup ensures your data will be safe. Some people don’t have anything of value to backup and never mess with it. Others have thousands of photo’s or small business records that they just can’t lose, so an offsite backup really makes sense and Carbonite makes it automatic. For both the technically challenged and the experienced user it’s a terrific tool.

I agree about storing an offsite backup. I disagree with using online services. Too many incidents in the past few years make me very wary of these services. The most recent involving Dropbox. http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/dropbox_accidentally_left_user_data_unprotected/. Granted, there are vulnerabilities with offsite storage (trusted friend or relative, even a safe deposit box). But in both of those cases, I know who I’m dealing with. I have no idea who the admin is that sets up a server with zero security on it. Not to mention, storing large amounts of data online is very time consuming. And as ISPs are starting to venture into the land of charging for bandwidth used, online storage may become a very expensive proposition.

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