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 ...
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.
A USB stick flash drive costs so little. Why would anyone subscribe to a service with a monthly charge to back up files?
And with Carbonite canceling its ads on Rush, why would anyone subscribe to Carbonite?
If you subscribe to them, get your data back and then dump Carbonite? Take out this one company and it will have a ripple effect.
10-4
> 1) mirrored 1.5 GB hard drives for server
That should read 1.5TB SATA hard drive for server.
also,
As for encryption, I use TruCrypt for everything.
House fire? That's what your refridgerator is for. Except for the most extensive fire, you ice box contents will be protected.
I'm not disagreeing with you entirely. It all depends on how valuable your data is. I back up to my server for my websites. That's free so I don't need Carbonite...especially since Carbonite decided to try and use its business to limit free speech.
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.
We have almost nothing on our computer. Husband backs up his Quicken on CD’s. I mostly use the computer for news & such since we don’t have tv.
We used Carbonite when we upgraded to Windows 7.
We’re on satelite.
It took days to backup and restore. We lost stuff. I had to do a lot of reinstalling. What a mess! I’ve wondered how it works for people who have a lot of important stuff to backup!
We going to an external hard drive.
I know what you are talking about, those USB sticks take up so much room in my pocket. (Sorry, could not resist).
But aren’t you also backing up your key?
I always wondered how the Satelite internet connection worked. Is it the only option where you live?
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.
448 Blowfish. No one’s going to be decrypting your data.
As a side note, thanks for the programming work you do. I realize you probably did not do the programming work on any programs I run but dang if these computers are not amazing and the people like you that make them work deserve a big thanks. So thanks!
I don’t know about Carbonite but with Crashplan, you can upload to their cloud for 5 bucks a month or you can seed your backup with a 1 TB hard drive for a one time $130 charge.
I have over 1 TB so I chose the seed option...they sent the drive and I put my most important 1TB of data on it and sent it back....2 days later it was on their server and I just filled in the blanks. Now, the 5 bucks a month syncs my 1.5 TB to their cloud which takes very little bandwidth.
If you have a system crash, they’ll seed the drive and send it to you. You do your restore and send it back.
It’s a great system.
The Pro version is even cooler.
Before I signed up with cable, our DSL was slow, slow, slow.
The Carbonite thingie said my backup would take a year.
Needless to say, I backed out of the free trial (1/12 of a year) and bought an external hard drive.
Now, I have two external hard drives. I keep one in the house and one in the car.
What are the odds of having my car stolen right after my house burns down?
Satelite is our only option because we live in a very rural area, and there’s a mesa between us and the cell phone tower that would give us some options.
Because we don’t have tv and I’m home alone alot, I purchase 17,000MB/30days. With normal surfing, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levine, etc. my usage runs about 60% over 30 days. I kept an eye on usage during the debates.
It’s a little slow, but for home use not a problem.
No streaming problems unless the wind blows hard enough to vibrate the dish...momentary.
Carbonite ate up so much bandwidth we were at max usage for days. Because our usage is on a 30 day cycle it took a couple weeks to get out of the red zone...
Big thing is to go off line when not in use.
hmmm. I’m with Carbonite. So far no problems, although it is a bit expensive, if you want to back up an additional hardrive.
Seems like a pretty good idea to me, to back up to the Cloud, whichever company you use.
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