> www.carbonite.com > > What do you all think? I use Carbonite, and for what it is, I like it a lot.
What it is: very inexpensive (US$50/year), easy-to-use, unlimited offsite storage. What it is not: fancy, fast, highly configurable. What we don't know: how secure it really is. Installation is trivial. A small download and a quick install and it's ready to go. You can pick what gets backed up if you want, or accept its defaults, which are My Documents and Desktop. Then it starts backing up. There is no scheduling. It runs all the time unless you explicitly stop it (which is easy to do). Once installed, icon overlays in Explorer show which files are backed up and not yet backed up. You can select files or folders to back up or exclude using the Explorer context menu. Restoring is easy; your remote storage shows as "Carbonite Drive" in the Explorer folder tree and looks like a regular drive, so you just copy & paste, or drag & drop. The only configuration options are to set priority (low or really low), disable it, or stop it for 24 hours. I have not noticed any effect on system performance; it only runs when the system is idle. The first backup can take a really long time (days or weeks) but after that it's reasonably quick. Limitations: There is a limit of 2GB per file. The initial backup (up to 50GB) runs at full speed (2-3GB/day at typical DSL/cable speeds) but then is limited to 0.5GB/day. According to the site, this is to prevent the T1 guys from hogging all the bandwidth. Security: who knows? The data is encrypted, but only with DES, and they have the key. We also don't know what would happen if the government knocked down the door with a "Patriot Act" warrant. So I wouldn't use it for anything that requires serious security. I'm guessing that their business plan involves getting a lot of customers at this very low price and then offering upgrades with more configuration options, higher per-day limits, etc. In fact, the site already indicates that a "power user version" will be available "soon." No info on when, or whether this will be extra cost (my guess is "yes").. But I really like being able to, for example, capture pictures from my cameras and know that they will be backed up offsite within a day or so. ************************************************************************ * ==> QUICK LIST-COMMAND REFERENCE - Put the following commands in <== * ==> the body of an email & send 'em to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <== * Join the list: SUBSCRIBE COMPUTERGUYS-L Your Name * Too much mail? Try Daily Digests command: SET COMPUTERGUYS-L DIGEST * Tired of the List? Unsubscribe command: SIGNOFF COMPUTERGUYS-L * New address? From OLD address send: CHANGE COMPUTERGUYS-L YourNewAddress * Need more help? Send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************************************************ * List archive at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ * RSS at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml * Messages bearing the header "X-No-Archive: yes" will not be archived ************************************************************************
