Carbonite: Ease of Use Doesn't Trump Price and Portability
Written: Jul 03 '07
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I am absolutely horrible about backing up my data. It may be from the brief stint I did as a system administrator with the constant backing up and rotating tapes, but I tremble at the thought of backing up on CDs or DVDs constantly. I hate buying the disks, I hate remembering to back up, and I especially hate when I finally remember to back up my machine and one of my kids uses the disk as a race track for a Hot Wheels car. I eventually settled on Amazon's S3 Service, but not before I took Carbonite out for a spin.
::: Easy As Apple Pie :::
Backing up your PC with Carbonite couldn't be easier; just head on over to their web site at http://www.carbonite.com, download the client, install it on your machine, and you are ready to start backing up your data. Carbonite gives you a free 15-day trial to see if you like the service, and I can't imagine why you wouldn't; it's so simple to set up anyone could do it! Once Carbonite is installed, you simply right click on a folder in Explorer and select the option to back up that folder. A small dot appears on each folder letting you know the back-up status: green means the folder is backed up, yellow means back-up is in process, and red signifies a problem.
The first time you back up your files with Carbonite, it will take several hours, especially if you do what I did and tell it to run at a low priority. I work from home, which means I don't work set hours, nor do I always get to bed at a decent time, so setting a specific time to run a back-up doesn't work for me. Once the initial back-up is done, however, Carbonite will only search for changed files, and the back-up will go much faster.
Best of all, Carbonite is secure, affordable ($49.95 a year for unlimited space), always on, and restoring lost files is as simple as visiting their web site and clicking "Restore" for your account.
::: So Why Am I Not Using Them? :::
Seeing as I have such great things to say about Carbonite, it must seem strange that I'm not using them. When I originally tried the service, I was using a PC running Windows XP, which at the present time, is the only operating system Carbonite supports. I knew, however, that my days on that machine were numbered, and that I was getting a MacBook Pro running OS X Tiger. I really liked Carbonite, and wanted to continue to use them, and had heard rumblings that an OS X version was coming soon. So, I did what any normal person would do; I emailed them, explained how much I loved the service and wondered if I would be able to transfer my subscription to my Mac when the OS X version was released. EVEN KNOWING I WOULD HAVE A GAP. I received no response. I assumed it was an oversight and emailed again. Again, no response. I wasn't about to shell out $50.00 for a service I wasn't going to use, so I started looking for other options.
::: Recommend, with Reservations :::
I had to take off one star for the lack of communication and the lack of support for ANY OS other than Windows XP. Vista users, those still using ME or '98, and Linux users are all shut out. Those of us on OS X are supposed to have a version coming soon, but no release date is set.
Add in the fact that the $49.95 is for unlimited data and you really need to stop and think about it. With S3, I'm generally paying less than $2.00 a month for my storage if I'm not accessing my data there. That's $48.00 a year or less for eight GIG of data. I think most people don't have that much data they are backing up off a personal computer, so you'd pay even less. While the $49.95 is attractive to power users (like my husband with his 1000s of photos shot with his 10 MP camera), you are actually paying for far less storage than you need. I also can use my S3 storage like a drive to port data from one machine to another, something you can't do with Carbonite.
Carbonite is ideal for setting up non-tech-savvy folks who like a pretty interface and don't (or won't) get very into the details themselves. And if you are an XP user with tons of stuff to back-up, Carbonite is probably a cost-effective solution. But for the rest of us, the pros don't outweigh the cons.
Recommended:
Yes
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pippadaisy
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Divorce seriously cuts into the amount of time for reviewing.
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