Question about Carbonite, Mozy, and others

Guapo wrote in post #10069677
I think it is unreasonable to expect full backups of all storage including external drives for $50/yr. It would really get out of hand. It is pretty significant that I can conceivably backup all 2.5TB of my internal storage, though. They have to limit it somehow. Your use of external drives for all data is not their fault. I believe their new corporate targeted "Carbonite Pro" service will backup from external USB drives.

The beauty of this system is that you don't even have to think about it. Just set your target directory, and it updates the backup with any changes automatically in the background.

I agree with you, Steven. My only point was that many of us use external drives to hold our data, and backup of those was not available (back when I attempted to use their service, about 1 year ago). This fact was not readily apparent on their web site, and I had to dig through numerous pages of FAQ to find that out.

I understand that they have the "Pro" account now, and that may be the right option. But for the standard $50/yr, their policy should place the limit on volume of data, not where you happen to keep it on your computer.

Cashoo wrote in post #10058715
It's always good to have 2 copies of everything, so off-line and online copy or a copy not at home .

The main problem with online back up is the rate it uploads which is much slower than backing up to a hard drive. Also if your a photographer storing 10's of GB's a month, backing up online would take forever.

That's why I dropped mozy and just rely on usb drives now. I keep one at work and periodically - weekly-ish - take it home and backup to it.

Mozy would literally take DAYS sometimes to do its next backup if I had a lot of files. And that was the paid version of Mozy...

golfecho wrote in post #10074266
I understand that they have the "Pro" account now, and that may be the right option. But for the standard $50/yr, their policy should place the limit on volume of data, not where you happen to keep it on your computer.

Agreed.

Maybe the reason mozy has a no limit policy for $50 is because bandwidth will act as a flow meter controlling how much can be stored. For sure most people do not have T1 lines in their house.

jetcode wrote in post #10076791
Maybe the reason mozy has a no limit policy for $50 is because bandwidth will act as a flow meter controlling how much can be stored. For sure most people do not have T1 lines in their house.

Most home connections have uploads that rival a T1's measly 1.54 Mbit/sec each way, and download rates that downright slay it. A T1 was hot stuff back in 1999, maybe.

jetcode wrote in post #10076791
Maybe the reason mozy has a no limit policy for $50 is because bandwidth will act as a flow meter controlling how much can be stored. For sure most people do not have T1 lines in their house.

Mozy throttles your upload bandwidth. Cranked to maximum upload speed, I still had plenty of upload bandwidth left. I have fiber to the home and good upload speeds. I even tested by uploading to zenfolio at the same time... mozy at "maximum" upload speed was using much less than I could upload. And I was using their paid version.

blackhawk wrote in post #10072097
Will they limit files to 2 internal HDs, or is that just for auto backups?
With eight active SATA ports and more one 1 TB HDs... well you get the idea.

According to their FAQ: How much stuff can I back up?

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.


As far as I can tell, that means anything internal. I have directories assigned from two different physical drives I have in my machine, with no complaints. Of course, having my FIOS 35/35 helps, too.

Thalagyrt wrote in post #10076827
Most home connections have uploads that rival a T1's measly 1.54 Mbit/sec each way, and download rates that downright slay it. A T1 was hot stuff back in 1999, maybe.

Ha-ha, T-1 no, FIOS YES!!

spkerer wrote in post #10076844
Mozy throttles your upload bandwidth. Cranked to maximum upload speed, I still had plenty of upload bandwidth left. I have fiber to the home and good upload speeds. I even tested by uploading to zenfolio at the same time... mozy at "maximum" upload speed was using much less than I could upload. And I was using their paid version.

Carbonite is pretty much the same way. I haven't used Mozy, but Carbonite's service is designed to be non-intrusive, only uploading in the background during periods of inactivity. After initial upload, it is only an incremental backup anyway.

With my 35 mbit upload connection, I can dump the better part of an 8GB card of RAW's, and it would be uploaded in about 24-48 hours if I leave my machine on when I go to work.

Guapo wrote in post #10076994
Carbonite is pretty much the same way. I haven't used Mozy, but Carbonite's service is designed to be non-intrusive, only uploading in the background during periods of inactivity. After initial upload, it is only an incremental backup anyway.

"Non-intrusive" is such a nicer way of saying "we only let you upload at a restricted rate." Mozy has a slider where you can set it to "max upload, I don't care how intrusive you are" (paraphrased a bit). Even at that setting, I can still watch as each bit goes up the fiber.

I think whoever said it already hit the nail on the head... they don't claim any limits on how much you can store because they only let you get it up there but so fast, putting a practical limit on how much you can get up there.

Taking multiple days for incremental backups is unacceptable to me.

When you cancel mozy's service, of the choices they list for why you're canceling the service - one of the first is "too slow upload times."

Sparky98 wrote in post #10056082
Do the off site back up companies such as Carbonite compress files any? I would assume not but I have read a lot of posts about the various back up sites and I have never seen that specific question addressed.

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Took me 12-13 days to back up my 180gb's of files.

For $50/ yr, I can live with limiting my backups to my (currently) 2.5TB of internal drive space. I can also live with the risk of a fire or break-in happening between the time I generate the content and the time it gets uploaded. I have the peace of mind to know that my 3rd level of backup is automatic, without me having to think about it.

I also use an NAS in the closet as my primary backup to my internal drives, then let Carbonite do it's thing without it bothering me or hogging my bandwidth. For me, I don't NEED it to max out. If I needed all out max performance uploads, then I could just upload directly to my web server.

1911 wrote in post #10077372
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Guapo wrote in post #10077448
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AH good point, thank you.