Question on Carbonite backup site - Montana Owners Club

Mrs. CountryGuy · 01-18-2009, 06:22 AM

Another thread brought up this new site, well, new to this ole gal.

SOOOO, I went investigating and found this info:

"There are no limits on backup storage capacity. Carbonite will back up all the supported files on your internal hard drive whether you have 1GB, 10GB or more. However, users should be aware that the speed of today's DSL and cable Internet services will make it very slow to back up more than, say, a few dozen GB of data."

SOOOOO, my question is to MOC members who are using this, how much data do you have stored here?? a few dozen GB, well, lets see, that is at least 24 Gigs, maybe 36??

I went digging around in my data and find that I have 20 Gigs of JUST photos??

And, I am running here on air card, speeds great, but, seriously, don't compare to hard wired cable internet, eh??

So, question is:

How much do you have stored on Carbonite, and if you have a LOT, say, 36 Gigs, what was your experience/time for first load, or any subsequent downloads of ALL your data??

Wayne and Carolyn Mathews · 01-18-2009, 10:07 AM

Carol, I can't remember offhand how much I have backed up on Carbonite, but I can tell you that I have a lot more than 20 gigs of graphics/photos there. I do the web site for my son's Hangin' Tree cowdog business and a lot of work for two other businesses in the county, all of which are graphics- and photo-intensive. The brochure file alone for the dog business is about 250 MB.

The back-up process with Carbonite is a real-time operation, for the most part. Once you get the service, you will see that Carbonite goes right into your files and starts backing up things, but as that's going on, you can use your computer as usual, so the time factor isn't an issue. Then, after the initial screening and backup is done (no work on your part at all--Carbonite does it "behind the scenes"), the backing up of what you're working on starts the minute you do--you type or edit photos, Carbonite is in the shadows backing up every keystroke and pixel. Again, you don't have to do a thing; when you save your work, you'll see a tiny yellow "balloon" on a corner of your file indicating backup is in progress. When the backup is finished, that yellow turns to green, meaning DONE! The "in progress" to "done" time is nearly instantaneous.

I downloaded a 207 MB photo file this morning, and within 2 or 3 minutes, every photo had a green dot on it, indicating the backup was complete. My internet connection is relatively slow, too; it's a DSL line, but I'm in an extremely rural area and my connection is not a true/pure DSL hookup. I'm actually connected to another box that's 8 miles down the road, and that box is connected to a central box 20 or so miles away that's maintained by Southern Montana Telephone. To give you some idea of the speed, when I log onto the internet, it takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 or 3 minutes for the home screen to appear. That is SLOW (but it's heaven compared to the dial-up connection that we were on for 5 years before DSL arrived). At work in town, where I have a high-speed T1 line, when I open Internet Explorer, the screen is THERE--instantly. So, maybe that gives you an idea about my home system's speed.

I wish I could remember how long it took for my initial download to be backed up with Carbonite, but I don't. Since all I had to do was sign on once I'd subscribed, that initial backup went on without my having to do anything. I have used the Carbonite restore feature several times, not just when the power company fried our lines. Several times I've had the

"Oops"

factor kick in--I needed something I'd sent into space when I clicked the "Empty Trash" button. All I had to do was log into my Carbonite account and there it was, the file or photo I deleted but needed.

I also have an external hard drive for backing up things, but when we moved into the RV last year, I had no room for it or for the boxes of backup zip and CD discs. Luckily, we had room in one of our storerooms to keep those things, but now that we're in the house, I don't want to give up space to store that stuff. I rely totally on Carbonite. In several years, it's never let me down, and it's saved my backside more than once. It's cheap, it's easy, and I think you won't have any problems with big files, especially during the initial back-up process.

Carolyn

Waynem · 01-18-2009, 10:15 AM

I have a personal opinion that I hope you don't mind if I share.

Backing up on someone else's site can cause just as much lose as backing up to another hard disk drive. Granted, there is incremental storage every day, and I would hope that they have an abundance of tapes that they rotate on a daily basis. Saying that, if you have 20Gb of data backed up on an increment backup system, and your upload 5 more gigabytes of information and before it can get incrementally backed up, they loos the system - well you are out 5 Gb of information except what you have on your hard drive. Now I don't know if they would notify you and you could reload that 5 Gb if you have it. I realize that I just gave a worse case scenario, but having worked in computer security for 13 years at NASA, I have seen things go wrong.

Here is what I do. 20 GB of photo data is approximately 5 DVD's. So I burn all my photo's to DVD. I also have an incremental backup system on the iMac, called "Time Machine." It is really intuitive and I can jump back in time to several months and grab any file I want. I also have another hard disk drive of 1 terrabyte capacity and it contains all of my data files and picture files. Since I'm a "freak," at wanting my data safe, I also place it on a few other hard disk drives, some PC, some MAC.

With the price of a DVD being less than 50 cents, I'm also saving money

Save storage space. Don't back up program files. You should have the original disk for your program files and you can restore them at any time. Only back up your data files. Examples, Documents, Spreadsheets, Data Base, Text, Pictures (of all formats for pictures.) And don't forget your movie files. Depending on what you do with your video files, one DVD per movie file may be a typical save for you. It is for me in many cases. I'm just now converting all my super 8 to DV to DVD. Time consuming, but the end results are great with full editing.

Which ever method of backup you use will be better than no backup at all. I just prefer doing it myself, then I don't have anyone to blame but the stupid computer!!

Mrs. CountryGuy · 01-18-2009, 11:16 AM

OK, good points here

Wayne, backing up just the data files, photos, word processing, whatever they may be, is fine.

But, Al just LOVES an image backup several times a year. That way, if you end up in trouble, you can always go back to that. it reloads all the programs, and data available as of backup date. Then I can reload all additional data files from back up date to current date.

Restore is a fun thing you can do on your computer, but, it does not always fix the problem.

I believe that we have done image back up restores from the external hard drives (and before that they were on CD's or DVD's) 3 or 4 times.

Al says it saved his bacon, and a bucket load of time.

again, many ways to do stuff, and it does not hurt to have em all, eh??

Thanks Carolyn for your detailed and time consuming response, it is greatly appreciated.

exav8tr · 01-18-2009, 11:40 AM

I have a problem with downloading all my financial information to someone else. Who is to say these folks, or anyone else for that matter, aren't compiling financial data on folks and may use it to their advantage at some other time. In other words, what guarantee do I have there would be no identify theft down the road???

ols1932 · 01-18-2009, 11:43 AM

What I like about the back up on Carbonite is the incremental back up of all documents and their changes. For example, if you work on a document and make changes after it is backed up, then it will be backed up with changes on Carbonite. The initial back up takes a while because upload speed is a lot slower than download. But once backed up everything works smoothly.

As was mentioned, you can continue to work on your computer with Carbonite working in the background automatically.

As Wayne mentioned, yes there could be a failure on the other end but I would venture to say that since they charge $50 per year for each computer backed up, they too must have some type of their own backup system. I'm willing to take my chances because we've had external hard drives crash also. So knowing that I can recover any files at any time should I need to get a different computer, gives me great peace of mind.

Orv

PowellsMonty · 01-19-2009, 11:39 AM

Am using Carbonite also as a safety net. I archive to dvds and back up to an external hard drive. One in the office & 1 set at home. If something happens to either location we have a backup and archive at the other. Business & personal. How often depends on how much you want to loose when something happens, and it will. Spent about $5000.00 last month trying to retrieve stuff on a crashed MAC hard drive from a recovery company in CA.

ols1932 · 01-19-2009, 03:21 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by PowellsMonty

Am using Carbonite also as a safety net. I archive to dvds and back up to an external hard drive. One in the office & 1 set at home. If something happens to either location we have a backup and archive at the other. Business & personal. How often depends on how much you want to loose when something happens, and it will. Spent about $5000.00 last month trying to retrieve stuff on a crashed MAC hard drive from a recovery company in CA.

Your experiences are the same as ours that's why we went to Carbonite both for my desktop computer and for Marge's laptop. It's well worth the peace of mind to know that when that dreaded crash comes, and it very well might, we can recover our data easily.

Orv

MikeM · 01-20-2009, 01:51 AM

For those who don't yet utilize an on-line backup service (especially if you use multiple PCs), you might want to also consider Jungle Disk: http://www.jungledisk.com/index.aspx

exav8tr · 01-21-2009, 01:30 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by exav8tr

I have a problem with downloading all my financial information to someone else. Who is to say these folks, or anyone else for that matter, aren't compiling financial data on folks and may use it to their advantage at some other time. In other words, what guarantee do I have there would be no identify theft down the road???

I guess since no one is responding to this post, security doesn't seem to be a problem. I noticed they double encrypt your data and store it that way that that is all we can ask for. Those of you in the know, is this a sufficient way to secure data?????

Mrs. CountryGuy · 01-21-2009, 02:44 PM

I have not joined yet, I had Al investigating, one thing I believe he noted and relayed to me, is that the files needed to be in

My Documents

area of storage on your hard drive??

is that correct??

if, soooooo, it would seem that you would simply NOT put anything in My Documents that you felt uneasy about.

I am sure, that current users will tell me where I am wrong here!

The other thing, is if they must be in My Documents, that just will not work for me with my method of storing files, most of them are stored in subdirectories under "C". Basically only my photos and some word processing files are there. But, hundreds of other files, cemeteries, stuff downloaded, photos and documents linked to my family history data base (that is well over 6000 files right there), NONE of these are stored in My Documents.

Answer bout the double encryption, someone else will have to supply, I am not that up on that. Sounds good tho, eh??

exav8tr · 01-21-2009, 04:38 PM

Carol, maybe over the next few days we can gather some more information on this. I do not put everything in Me Docs either. I thought they backed up everything in your system. Maybe I am wrong.
You comp geeks (lol) can jump in anytime and help us out here.........

Thanks Phil

ols1932 · 01-22-2009, 03:52 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by exav8tr

Carol, maybe over the next few days we can gather some more information on this. I do not put everything in Me Docs either. I thought they backed up everything in your system. Maybe I am wrong.
You comp geeks (lol) can jump in anytime and help us out here.........

Thanks Phil

Phil,
No, it doesn't automatically back up everything; it backs up those things under Documents and Settings. You can back up any file by right clicking on it in Windows Explorer and clicking on Carbonite then click on Backup.

In our case, there are several files directly on the C:\ drive that we select for backup also.

Orv

Mrs. CountryGuy · 01-22-2009, 09:51 AM

OK Orv, so, does it back up those files under the C drive automatically.

If, I pick a files, say, Carols temp files 2009, and tell Carbonite to back it up.

The next time I change that file, will Carbonite update??

OR, do I have to say "update" every time??

Thanks for leading the blind here Orv!

ols1932 · 01-22-2009, 12:42 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Mrs. CountryGuy

OK Orv, so, does it back up those files under the C drive automatically.

If, I pick a files, say, Carols temp files 2009, and tell Carbonite to back it up.

The next time I change that file, will Carbonite update??

OR, do I have to say "update" every time??

Thanks for leading the blind here Orv!

No, it doesn't back up everything on the C:\ drive. But once you tell it to back up a file on the C:\ drive, it will continue to update that file whenever it is changed.

Orv

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