Coffee?

I just came across a half written diary entry, which I never got around to finishing (see below). Quite amusing, as I am now thanking my lucky stars I made the investment in Carbonite online back-up service.

Last Thursday I started my computer, and nothing happened. My hard drive had crashed and I lost all my data. This was really quite frustrating as I only replaced it about 18 months ago. So again I replaced my hard drive (more $$$ down the gurgler) and I then activated the Carbonite restore process. Frankly nothing seemed to happen for a long while. The interface is not immensely user friendly.  I had no idea whether the restore was processing. I found this quite frustrating.  The help/support option seems to flip between US help and Australian help. But after about 90 minutes trying to work it out, I left it alone, and came back several hours later to find the restore process was indeed happening. Most data looks like it will be restored. I still need to install an operating system and software, so recovering the PC to its former glory has been a full weekend project and then some, but if I had not subscribed to Carbonite, I would have lost an awful lot more.

 Today I finally paid for my Carbonite subscription. It cost $71.95 a year, and means the files I select on my computer are backed up by Carbonite. Carbonite is an online back-up solution that backs up your data, while you are connected to the internet. Recent natural disasters have finally prompter me to subscribe to Carbonite.

It is pretty cheap at $71.95 a year, for peace of mind that my photos and my business documents are safe, in case of a disaster, hard drive crash, or my computer being stolen.

  • One Year subscription – $71.99
  • Two Year subscription – $129.99
  • Three Year subscription – $167.99

With the ongoing recession, I am also hearing of more burglaries and I would be seriously compromised if my PC was stolen and I lost all my data.

Carbonite allows you a free month to test their service. Installation is fairly easy. After almost a month it has backed up 23.8GB of files, I am still waiting on 3.8GB of files.

From the Carbonite website :-

Carbonite is online backup software that automatically and securely backs up your files to our remote backup facility. Carbonite Online Backup offers unlimited online backup storage for all your files for under $6 per month. Should you ever lose your files as a result of a virus, theft, hard drive failure or other unforeseen disasters, your files can easily be restored via our online backup recovery system. Finally, drive backup software for Macs is here.

 The big concern I had was would Carbonite back-up slow my internet access speed down? I do not believe it has in anyway. I barely know that it is even operating.

It took 8 days for all my data to restore from the online back-up.

I highly encourage you, if you haven’t already; get a on-line back-up solution in place. I make no money from suggesting you use Carbonite. It is simple, it does what it says and it works for me.