Carbonite Review: Recommended

It’s been almost two weeks now since I started looking at Carbonite and I have to say that overall I am very impressed. In my previous posts (First Look, Initial Backup, Incremental Backups) I looked at installing, setup and the initial days of backup. In this post I will look a little more at how Carbonite handles backup with respect to power saving features and being disconnected from the internet. I will also look at the restore process.

Power saving and disconnected

A week ago, after my last post, I shut down my laptop, unplugged it from our home network and carried it out to my in-laws acreage were we have no internet access. While I spent four hours mowing their “grass” and blowing dirt around, Monika, my wife, transferred pictures off of our digital camera onto the laptop. She also wrote a couple of reports so there was a lot of new stuff to be backed up and a couple of changed documents. Our email files also needed to be backed up as they had not been backed up before we left.

When we got home, and after a shower, I turned the laptop on but left it disconnected from the network. When I went into the “Carbonite Backup Drive” it told me that I was disconnected and that a backup was pending. I plugged it into the network and viola, the backup started. Great!

I should note that I had also re-enabled the power saving features of my laptop so every 20 minutes or so it would go into standby mode even though it was “busy” backing up. Now I don’t know if this is a Microsoft problem or if there is even a solution to this from the developer’s side of things but if you ask me, the fact that my computer is backing up means that it is busy and shouldn’t be going to sleep. Anyway the backup started up again when I roused the PC and in no time the new and changed data was backed up just waiting to be restored.

The restore process

OK, so I have 12 GB of data sitting in an online backup somewhere in cyberspace just waiting for me to suffer from some sort of data loss. The true test is how easy is it going to be to get things back.

There are essentially two ways to restore files using Carbonite. You can restore individual files and folders or you can restore the whole system (by system I mean data only and not the operating system). Given that I don’t have a crashed system I am not really able to test out the system recovery aspect of things however, it does look easy to do. If you lost everything and needed to get things back on a replacement system then the first step is to visit the Carbonite website and login to your account. From there you can re-install or transfer your account to a new computer and restore your data. Carbonite will also allow you to transfer data between user accounts. If you are using the computer as “Dave” now but had been using it as “David” before then you can restore all of “Dave’s” data to the “David” account.

If you only need to restore single files or folders then the easiest way to do this is to browse your Carbonite Backup Drive. You can poke around the files and folders that you have backed up and once you find the file or folder you are looking for it is a simple matter of right clicking and selecting restore. You can choose to restore to the original location or to an alternate location. You can also restore previous versions of a file if need be. It is all very slick with only one negative as far as I am concerned. As with the backup, the restore lacks a progress indicator that shows the transfer rate and estimated time of completion.

Final Comments

Well I have to say that Carbonite works very well on my system and I would not hesitate to recommend it as a backup solution for home or SOHO computer users.

The positives for Carbonite are:

• It installs very easily.
• The setup is painless for simple situations.
• The cost of the service is beyond reasonable at only $4.95/month for unlimited space.
• It works with power saving features turned on. That is it resumes the backup as soon as it comes out of standby mode.
• It provides true file versioning, not just one copy like some of the other services.
• It uses some sort of binary patching. That is you don’t need to upload the whole file every time it changes which speeds up the backup process.
• It doesn’t slow your computer down while you are using it.

The negatives are:

• Missing/hard to read log files.
• The progress indicators (backup and restore) do not provide transfer rates and time estimate information.
• Lack of notification options.

As I have already said, i would recommend Carbonite as a backup service. I will say that there are aspects that I have not looked at and have assumed to be true. For example I am assuming that if a backup is interrupted for some reason that it will resume from where it left off even mid-file. I have not tested it with any SMB applications such as Exchange, SQL server and IIS for example. Again I am assuming that it does NOT support these applications and that it is really just a desktop backup solution.

My final comment has to do with logging and notifications. I know that most people won’t care about this aspect but it is one area that I am not comfortable with. The option to recieve email notifications or some other notification on the status of my backup would be appreciated. As it stands the only notification you get is from the icon in the system tray, which is always green even when a backup is pending or you are offline. The one exception was during the initial backup at which time the icon was yellow with a life ring in the middle of it.

In conclusion… I give Carbonite 4 out of 5 stars. I would also recommend it over Mozy at this time. This is based on previous experience with Mozy but to be fair it has been several months since I looked at Mozy. I will review Mozy in my upcoming posts.

Until next time.

Mike Lavender
Owner/CEO of Simply Offsite

Simply Offsite
Simplifying backup since 1998
http://www.simplyoffsite.com

Carbonite Review: Incremental backups.

It’s been a couple of days now since I started using Carbonite’s online backup service. The initial (full) backup went well and took 2.5 days to complete which isn’t too bad for 11 GB of data. I think the incremental backups are working but I have to admit that I am not sure at this point.

The reason that I am unsure is that there is no log available as Len Pallazola suggested in his comment to a previous blog post. The carbonite.log file does not exist and the “View History” option results in script errors (probably because the log file does not exist). So here I sit mildly concerned that the backup isn’t really happening. The Carbonite Icon in the system tray is green (indicating that my backup is complete) by I still have an uneasy feeling.

I can browse the Carbonite Backup Drive, which is available from a shortcut on my desktop and it looks like things are working properly. I have two versions of my active Outlook files and the descriptive text next to the files say that the backup will happen again in X number of minutes/hours so we will see how things go.

One… feature? of Carbonite is that it seems to access my floppy drive on a regular basis and I have no idea why. My guess is that it is polling my system to see what drives/data are available for backup but that is only a guess. It is only very mildly annoying although it does seem to happen with variable frequency and some times it occurs every couple of seconds (5 to 10 sec.) for an extended period of time.

The good news is that the backups (if they are happening) don’t seem to be slowing my system down. It has only been a couple of days and I have not changed very much data since the full backup completed. I will get a better idea of how things are working this week as my wife and I use the system a lot more.

Other aspects that I need to check out are how the backup works with power saving features enabled and when the system is not connected to the internet. I know it won’t backup when it is not connected, what I am curious about is how it recovers from missing a backup either because the power is off/stand-by or because it is a free spirit without internet.

Until next time.

Mike Lavender
Owner/CEO of Simply Offsite

Simply Offsite
Simplifying backup since 1998
http://www.simplyoffsite.com

Google’s [Free] Online Backup?

As an online backup service provider I’ve been thinking a lot lately about free or almost free online backup services. What has really prompted me to think about it though are the re-emerging rumors of Google offering Online Backup. I think that if anyone is going to offer free online backup services it would be Google… but is it really free?

Doesn’t this freak anyone out? I mean this is a company whose “mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” as taken from their own website. This seems like a conflicting mission when it comes to data backup. Is it unreasonable to read this as “we will backup your data and make it public” or the more likely case, “we will backup your data, index it, and then serve up ads to you based on what the majority of your data says that you are interested in.”

For example, as an avid canoeist with route maps, meal plans, trip logs and other canoe specific data on my computer am I going to be branded as such and be targeted with ads for canoe/camping related items? If you don’t think this is possible then I have to tell you that I am already targeted for online backup services for some strange reason. If I visit a website (not related to backup) with Google’s ads on it, more often then not I am served up ads about online backup services!

What I find most interesting about this is that the credit card companies and major store chains did something similar to this a couple of years ago and here we are a society that is paranoid about privacy and identity theft. Those that are the most vocal about these evil corporate giants are the ones looking for free online backup and exposing themselves (literally) to risk.

Is this a bash against Google and a service that is still only a rumor? No, it is just a “think about it”. I do know that if Google gets into the online backup business that it will mean some pretty major changes for the industry. I also know that when Google does something they do it well and they fill a niche.

Is anyone else paranoid like I am or am I way off base here? I’d love to know what your thoughts or comments are?

p.s. I’m not the only one – check out Eric’s thoughts on the subject:

Mike Lavender
Owner/CEO of Simply Offsite

Simply Offsite
Simplifying backup since 1998
http://www.simplyoffsite.com

Carbonite Review: Initial backup – 12 hours in, 40 to go.

It’s been 12 hours since I signed up for and installed Carbonite’s online backup client on my home PC and things are working well.

What I like so far:

There are a couple of features that have impressed me so far and they are:

• How easy the install was. Honestly I think this is the fastest easiest install I have ever seen.
• The Carbonite client is intelligent enough to work on [Windows] systems that are using Fast User Switching and those that do not. That is, the backup is not terminated when you log off or switch users. It also seems to grab all of the documents from all users.
• The simplicity of the backup. There are no configuration options (none!) to make things complicated.
• I can use my system (old slow laptop – Intel Pentium III @ 897 MHz) without seeing much in the way of a slow down as a result of the backup. I will keep in mind that this is the initial backup I am talking about and there is no real processing going on, just uploading, so it should be light on resources.
• One cool “looking” feature is that it seems like you can set priorities on files for backup. If I understand this feature I can say that my Accounting data takes highest priority and as a result will get backed up before my recently add browser bookmarks… I think that’s the idea but I’m not sure.

What I don’t like so far:

• I have no options! Yes I said this was a good thing but I do like to have some options.
• The progress indicator is bit vague for me. Yes it is telling me how far along it is in terms of file counts and data transfered but what about connection speed and expected duration? I also like to see per file progress (I could spend hours watching progress bars and analyzing throughput).
• Where is the log file? What has been uploaded so far?
• There is a lot of extra stuff that is getting backed up that I think is a waste of time space and bandwidth. Un-selecting this stuff is a bit too tedious for me. I know it as all you can eat for the low low price of $4.95/month but being forced to be a pack rat is NOT a good thing. I have seen a LOT of systems where this stuff is migrated to a new computer and does it ever slow things down (and confuse) the new system. This ties into being able to set priorities for backup. If it wasn’t uploading so much junk I wouldn’t need to worry about prioritizing my data?

The complaints aside I like what I see. The absolutely painless install and configuration are great. The lack of features is not so great but I’m not your average computer user either (I’m also not a hack, geek or nerd).

Things that I am still curious about are how it handles the incremental backups. I, like most people, have a lot of email in several Outlook PST files. I am hoping that it does not need to upload the whole file each day and I am also wondering how many versions I get to hold on to. Time will tell.

According to my calculations it will take about 2.5 days for the backup to complete. I’ll keep you posted on how things went.

Until then.

Mike Lavender
Owner/CEO of Simply Offsite

Simply Offsite
Simplifying backup since 1998
http://www.simplyoffsite.com

Carbonite Review: First look

I decided to take a look at Carbonite’s online backup service today. I have to admit that the sign-up process was painless and the installation was very quick. I did choose the default installation settings i.e. I didn’t change anything as I figure this is how most people will opt to use the software.

I have about 11 GB of data to backup so it is going to take some time to get through the first backup, which is normal. I guess I’ll get a cup of coffee and watch the progress bar

I’ll let you know how things are going in a day or two.

Until then.

Mike Lavender
Owner/CEO of Simply Offsite

Simply Offsite
Simplifying backup since 1998
http://www.simplyoffsite.com