Posted on 03/07/2012 6:20:10 AM PST by FreeAtlanta
With cloud services now available, gone are the days of those local data backups to CDs or tape – or are they? If your business has a modest amounts of data to safeguard, then cloud services provide a convenient solution for moving a copy of your data over the web to a secure storage environment. The issue is with larger amounts of data, with some cloud backup providers like Carbonite reducing the speed at which the data is transferred. It’s a policy known as bandwidth throttling, something that competitors like CrashPlan say they avoid.
If you know what you’re getting, then you can at least avoid unpleasant surprises. However, some network providers use the word “unlimited” in ways that require interpretation. Carbonite states on its website homepage that it provides “unlimited data backup.” Yet elsewhere it gives a figure of 3GB-4GB of data as the maximum daily backup level, at least in the context of its “Home”...
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
I’m confused. Why not just use an external hard drive?
bump
why would an individual use it?
But if you are trying to protect your data, why are you sending it to someone?
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!
Also you have to remember to back your stuff on on the external drive on some sort of set schedule. Services like Carbonite are “set it and forget it”.
Most services make it easy to log into your account and reinstall your data on a new computer.
I keep telling people about crash plan because after trying Mozy and Carbonite, I was put onto it my my IT manager (I am a programmer and coffee roaster:)
I loved it. I don’t use their cloud, but I use their software to backup my computers to each other and to an external computer. It is very cool and there isn’t a charge unless you use their cloud.
I also use dropbox for simple synching. It is free for < 2GB.
Clickfree has some really nice products for back-up. Easy to use.
lol, I understand. I don’t have anything that is particularly secret on my computers, but anyway, most of these services do encrypt the data.
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.
That might be the throttling. A buddy of mine was complaining about the throttling that is why I this article caught my eye.
My friend has tons of movies and other media he backs up so he went over the throttling limit. He wasn’t happy.
Heh, heh. As you can see, it’s not something I’ve concerned myself with. ;-)
I am sure there are many people who are afraid that the encryption can be broken or compromised. Anything is possible, but if I had stuff so sensitive that I was afraid of this, then what’s to keep someone from breaking in my home and stealing it, or the government getting a warrant and taking it?
I just try not to do things I am ashamed of. That tends to keep me out of legal issues. :-)
No, Carbonite and Mozy actually do throttle the amount of transfer once you exceed what they view is abusive. Basically, they give you infinite or unlimited storage but they make it impossible to reach whatever value they have designated. It doesn’t matter how fast your ISP is, the backup companies put the brakes on.
My friend found Carbonites policy on it and was ticked. He was planning to drop them before the Rush incident.
All operating systems have some kind of schedule service. You can create a backup and schedule it to run at a particular time, daily, weekly, or whatever. I use Windows Xcopy to copy my files to a second internal SATA drive, using the option to copy only files whose date on the target drive is earlier than that on the source (this prevents having to copy every file every time). I put the commands in a batch file and use the Schedule service to run it every morning. For extra security I archive my data onto DVD media about once every six months and keep the media at a remote location.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.