I’m confused. Why not just use an external hard drive?
I tried Carbonite, but quit when the program indicated it would take 6 to 7 days to do my back-up using my high speed Internet connection. Unusable.
Call me old-fashioned, but I’m not handing my data over to anyone to safeguard. From my cold dead hands!
Nonsese - confusing storage with transfer.
Bandwidth restrictions come from the ISP - not Carbonite.
It would take at least a day or two to upload 3-4GB on my slow DSL connection...
Their storage capacity might be unlimted - but you will always be limited as to the amount you can backup daily by your ISPs bandwidth.
Here’s my backup scheme:
1) mirrored 1.5 GB hard drives for server
2) all user laptops and workstations have sync of important user file folders to the network server.
3) once a week, I open the side of the server and swap out one of the mirrored drives to one recently initialized.
4) removed drive is stored in a firesafe and the server re-mirrors itself back to the fresh drive.
Hot swapping the drive takes all of 3 or 4 minutes.
The server is nothing more than a used 4 year old Dell Precision 490 running 64-bit Vista that I got for $225.
As others mention above, all technical discussion aside, I’d skip Carbonite in response to their throwing El-Rush-Bo under the bus this week.
My issue is just saving data is not sufficient.
Of my 3 PCs, one has some very expensive software with licensing issues and setting up the required configurations can, without exaggeration take weeks assuming all the documentation is still available. This PC runs my Pipe Organ along with some Virtual Pipe Organs.
I need to create an exact image of the Hard Drive and possibly store that on a Network Appliance along with automatic backups of data. I don’t know if Ghost or similar programs would fulfill both OS and automated data backups.
If my house is destroyed, the reason for this PC to exist is gone anyway so an in house backup would be sufficient.
And for those who ask why you would need a program like that? There are those of us who are not tech savy and who like the set and forget part off offsite storage. There are some things that would break my heart to lose and I love the fact that something can come in and back up only those things that have changed and I don't have to remember to do it. At my age the less I have to remember the better.
As if I want to pay a bunch of strangers to know everything on my computer. No, thanks.
1.5 TB is readily available from Costco for $140 so I back up to the external drive and occasionally swap with a second external drive in an offsite storage unit I rent because I downsized to a condo recently.
As someone mentioned upthread, the MS Office, Turbotax files are trivial in size and easily fit on a thumb drive. I have Turbotax files as e-mail attachments on the net also.
Simple and cheap backup:
First, get one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=usb+sata+dock&x=0&y=0
(many items shown, they all work the same, just pick one that’s cheap, some are $20-25)
Then, get one or more SATA “bare” hard drives of your choice. Sometimes you can even pick one up for free from someone who has one they don’t need.
On a Mac, use the -free- “CarbonCopyCloner” app to create a bootable clone of your internal drive. CCC will also do “incremental” updates once the initial clone is complete.
Not sure what can be used with Windows, but probably ‘way more backup apps there than on the Mac.
Keep the backup handy.
OR — for more security, create a second backup and store it “offsite”.
If you don’t have a place offsite to store it, go to an office supply place and get one of these:
http://www.staples.com/Sentry-Safe-Fire-Safe-07-Cubic-Ft-Capacity-Waterproof-Security-File/product_651875
Waterproof and fireproof (at least to a certain degree).
Put the backup drive into the safe along with some silica gel to suck up moisture and put it down in the basement. If there’s a house fire, it probably has the best chance of surviving the heat down there. Yes, the fire department will spray water on the house, and that’s why you want a -waterproof- safe (along with heat resistance).
A strategy like this should work reasonably well for personal/home backup. Businesses (and home-businesses) might need more.
Although I can’t understand why anyone (particularly conservatives) would put their faith “in the cloud”. What if the cloud suddenly “disappears”? Seems like at least one cloud backup outfit went under, and the data stored therein went “poof”. Putting one’s faith “in the cloud” is, to me, like putting one’s faith in the all-powerful government.
I don’t.
Ubuntu has free could/file sync.
You dont have to be an Ubuntu user for this service.
Supports Linux, Windows, Android, Iphone and Ipad...no OSX.
Free plan - 5GB, File sync across platforms, mobile access.
https://one.ubuntu.com/services/free/
https://one.ubuntu.com/downloads/
And they have pay plans for users who need more.