Anyone use carbonite?

I was interested to see if anyone uses Carbonite to backup your files? I already have my files on an internal HD, backed up by and external, as well as the finished JPG's on dvd, but you cannot be too careful right?

Apparently..."Carbonit​e automatically and securely backs up the irreplaceable contents of your computer for only $54.95 per year no matter how much stuff you need to back up."

http://www.carbonite.c​om/

Worth it?

My approach has been the same as yours: HD while active, external HD for archive plus archives on DVD. I've looked at Carbonite in the past; certainly cheap enough, but I've not yet pulled the trigger myself.

Yeah, the price is right, and seeing that is the price it is, i dont see why i shouldnt have another round of backups. Its probably the most reliable/cheapest of the devices I have .

I subscribed to Carbonite on April 29... it's still not done backing up. I've been leaving the computer on at night to help. So far it's backed up 132GB, only 12.2GB to go.

What I like so far:
1. No size limit.
2. Easy to select files to backup, or to not back up.

What I don't like:
1. Time - quite slow.
2. It only backs up your hard drive. Once you delete it from your HD, Carbonite deletes it too.

Is it worth the money? I have to say yes. It's not good for keeping long term backups, but it could save your butt, and that's what backups are for.

Scott

Have you been running it full time or just at night? Can you start and stop the backups? If its taken over a month to do 132 gigs then i am in trouble. Having almost filled up half of 1.5 tb i think i may be able to have the backup completed by christmas.

I've been running it most days during the day and lately (last week or so) have been leaving it on at night, too.

Depending on how much data you have, they really start to throttle it on their basic service. I have over 300gb of pictures.

I believe your first 35gb your upload speeds will go crazy. Once you upload more than 35gb they throttle you down to 512kb up, and then after you go over 200gb they throttle you down to 100kb up. If you are shooting raw files it will take forever. Right now I have the basic $55/annual service and i'll tell you the upload speeds are painful, painful to the point where i'm ready to pack up and pull the plug and i've already uploaded 200gb.

Also, if you buy a new computer and want to change file locations give it up. Their migration process is basically you run this wizard and it will re-download all your files from carbonites service. While the download speeds fly, they put the files where they want to put them. I recently upgraded from XP to Windows 7 and I wanted to organize my pictures a little differently (more efficiently using window 7's libraries) and their migration process doesnt allow this, even working with their support it is a nightmare and basically to do it my way I need to re-upload data that is already on their servers. They put the files where they want to put them. I emailed their ceo to complain about upload speed and migration (contact info is on carbonites webpage under contact us) and said your upload speed sucks and they told me maybe I should use their Carbonite Pro service which is much more expensive than the free service. Carbonite pro there is no cap on upload however you pay per month per gig. Screw That!

I just built a new PC with 1.5tb drives in a raid 1 (mirror) configuration. While it's not offsite like carbonite is, i'm redundant and not wasting my time, bandwidth and it's way cheaper. My 320gb would cost $250/month with carbonite pro.

IMO carbonite standard service is geared towards the common user with under 50gb of data.

I tried carbonite for 6 months and quit. I was creating data faster than their throttled bandwidth would upload. I've since switched to backblaze and LOVE it.

It looks like backblaze is another option, and even a little cheaper if you buy it for a year. Do they throtle their bandwidth too?

I personally consider two copies on two drives in separate locations enough. In most countries (including the US soon) you're limited to how much bandwidth you can use, so if you do it i'd only back up moderate size jpeg versions as "last resort" backup - say 3000x2000px Q8, which will still look fantastic and print up to 30" no problem.

depends where you live.... united states upload speeds are crazy slow. we are light years behind korea and other civilized countries.

if you are going to do it, and are in a bigger city, check and see if verizon FIOS is in your area yet. fastest upload speeds out there for US

http://www.boygeniusre​port.com …orld-in-broadband-speeds/

I got carbonite and it worked great, except I found out after I had paid for a year that it won't work with external drives at all. Because of that, I have stopped using it.

wdwpsu wrote in post #10379696
I tried carbonite for 6 months and quit. I was creating data faster than their throttled bandwidth would upload. I've since switched to backblaze and LOVE it.

I used a similar service to carbonite and had the same issue. i create more data then uploads. So I cannot see this ever working for me.
I went back to the old;
Local hard drive,
Mirrored external,
a copy at home
a DVD of each job in the file.
I figure the only way I am going to have a big problem is if the west coast sinks into the sea, I loose everything. but if that were to happen I would be treading water anyway.

I'm also interested in whether or not Backblaze throttles your uploads. Anyone?

Why would they? They want the data as quickly as possible, since a connection ties up resources. It's more likely your ISP would throttle uploads.