I use carbonite and my default browser is Chrome. If you dont believe you need reliability, why bother using RAID at all? With plain DVD backups, you at least get archival. They send an appliance over to you that manages all of your scheduling and if you do have a loss on your side you have the option of pulling the data off of the local equipment. Once it is set up properly you don't need to touch it again. Who could expect something like that? Some say Im paranoid having so many backups but just because youre paranoid doesnt mean that someone is not out to get you :<) I have thousands of digital photos and theyre all precious to me. I am not a shill for Mozy I just believe it is the best consumer-grade online backup service that I have tested. I really liked it until they implemented the HUGE price increase. Let me start with Mozy. If you consider Carbonites competition as a single external drive or regular CD/DVD backups, they seem to have much better security at a reasonable price. Carbonites web site warns, You need to be aware that losing your most valuable files is a very real possibility. This is wrong for many many reasons. A lifelong coder, Ive used Mozy, Carbonite and Backblaze, for prolonged periods of time. I used Carbonite support and they suggested I set Carbonite to a low priority so that means they know setting Carbonite to high priority can screw up your computer? I love teaching, travel, cars, and laughing. The strange thing was that under billing it still showed the price we had been paying for the past six years, and showed we would be charged the same amount again on our renewal date. Whether you like it or not, its become a part of Windows, and there are many projects that rely on its presence for providing simple functionality. Thats why he pushed the IT techs so hard for more and better in-house backup procedures. Primarily catering to individuals, small, midsize and large enterprises, it allows users to automate cloud backup for applications, videos, documents and other crucial data, which is frequently stored on on-site systems. document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Brent Ozar Unlimited. Thank you so much for leaving us some actionable feedback. You mean, like hard drives that fail? Limited versioning. The process of backing up data on Internex was very time-consuming and I was having difficulty simply backing up videos (anything beyond PNGs, JPGs, and documents/PDFs). Did you only store the data online on the Promise arrays, and not back them up to tape? By default, it backs up heaps of things that don't need backing up. carbonite is a scam of a company. So the backup jobs quit running. There was a departmental SQL Server that I did not know about that was not UPS protected. Still, I believe the process performs too much writing to temp folders while encrypting files, which can be eliminated with tighter programming. As long as theres competition on the market, Im not ever using Mozy. And like I mentioned, I also like how they will back up your external hard drive which a competitor I was looking at does not do. A relative sent me your column about a Carbonite failure. Neil. The backup company is immediately aware of any failure and quickly notifies customers as well as taking steps to restore the backup. Theyre very helpful and friendly. Again, Im more worried about the meteorite than all 5 copies being destroyed at once by anything else. restore UI is buggy and does not work At this point who knows what critical files were being eliminated from my backup. Did you only store each customers data on a single Promise array? Ease of install - It is extremely easy to deploy Carbonite. Brent: Keep in mind that this is backup, not archiving. I ask a few questions and they only answer one, simply ignoring the others. Who knew they were referring to their own services? Compared to a widely-distributed SAN + Tape yeah, they fall a bit short but whats the $$ difference? Carbonite has an option to Back up files of this type when you go to properties of an item. Second Copy continuously monitors all these directories and subdirectories on my internal HD and if any file in them is modified or new files are added then the changed or new files are immediately backed up to the external drive. Who could know about the dangers that lurk around every corner? As a result of our problems with the Promise servers, we switched to a popular Dell server that uses RAID6 an improved RAID that allows for the loss of 3 of the 15 drives simultaneously before you lose any data. You need to take proper precautions.. What I dont like is that they essentially hold your system hostage. So much for a paid service, My vista machine was not corrupt. Mind you these werent major restores. Carbonite backs up the data in the same format. All Rights Reserved. Ive never had Javascript errors on Carbonite on 3 computers Ive used it on. Carbonite UI uses IE-specific HTML generated from a custom webserver. I would like to make sure that your readers understand two points with regard to Carbonites lawsuit against Promise Technologies: 1) This event happened over a year ago. By the sound of your argument, you could avoid RAID altogether because heck, the customer always has the real data, right? Theyre suing Promise Technology, makers of popular storage gear, for selling them bogus equipment. Ill bet he really knows his stuff. Now waiting on the hard drive to be replaced on the second one. How terrible a company wants to grow and advertises on RUSH LIMAUGH of all places! I had to rebuild msdb and rebuild all the jobs. Regarding your bullet list at the end our team encountered a situation wherein we didnt have a backup we expected to have, so since that point, nearly 3 years ago, we have a job that checks every database across the entire environment to see when it was last backed up, and alerts us if it finds anything more than 1 day out. ), it was a nightmarish mess of code and inept/unintuitive/cryptic/excessive interface design. Damned if it does, damned if he doesnt. Ive had several Apple problems, gone to the nearest store, and gotten hands-on help from the Genius Bar. In practice, not so much. By not answering them, I can only assume that your answer is no. It felt and looked like someones student proof of concept project grown way past its intended limits. Why the hell not! The only thing I need to do manually is for my future data and the process is SUPER simple even for the tech-challenged. Ive read all the comment herethe reviews and I think its an impressive act when a CEO willingly enters in a discussion like this. Thats horrible! Its the backups have been lost the originals are still intact on the users PCs/Networks. Bogus equipment? He/him. My main weapon, though, isnt venom or a thesaurus its the fact that Im a database expert and former storage administrator tasked with backups for a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Id recommend giving http://www.absorb.com a lookup. So one hard drive was replaced and and then another laptop went. Hello Mr. X removed X and thank you for contacting Carbonite Customer Support. While I ensure that I back up my data through my external hard drive, I also know that my external hard drive can go kaput as all of them do eventually. Jack, I found the workaround for making Carbonite back up all extensions after 30 seconds of Googling. Anyone ever send a letter to Apple and get a reply? 3) It forces users to stick with certain version of IE otherwise they lose their Carbonite functions I also like the custom updates it provides on backup status. Dont point and laugh and say it could never happen to you because you do your own backups in-house, because Ive seen too many backup strategies fail for too many reasons. 4) It just isnt a good idea it works well for hybrid windows/web applications but Carbonite isnt a good candidate for such an approach that is why NO OTHER online backup service uses such a low quality kludge approach. By the way, as a small user I have been quite satisfied with Carbonite. Im not going to sugarcoat it thats what they are. The one time I needed to retrieve some (thankfully, minor) data I lost from a few days ago, I discovered that Mozy corrupted it on THEIR END. Now, after reading what Ozar had to say in this article Im totally convinced that my precautions are not overkill at all even if I only had hundreds of photos. that didnt work so they added even more random files to eliminate from backup. Now, whoever said that Carbonite is just a thinly veiled IE webpage, is a complete moron. During a power outage in August the msdb database was corrupted and marked as suspect. Even though were small, we none-the-less have some really precious files we need to protect. Additionally, it lets Windows users revert to a previous OS version in case of deletion/loss of data. These customers in this article appear to be BIG BOYS with huge databases and complex SQL servers. Single-device. 1) Not everybody uses or wants to use IE Perhaps it was a problem with just that one employee but they definitely need to get better at communicating changes to their customers. Carbonite is so slow its incapable of backing up RAW files. The straw on camels back arrived when I discovered that Mozys shoddy programming extended past its sluggish performance and cryptic interface. Notice that wherever there is legitimate criticism of carbonite anywhere on the internet, David Friend or one of his lackeys pop up out of nowhere explaining that whatever the issue in question was is not Carbonites fault, but instead, the fault of either the user, or in this case, their supplier. Since they werent completely backed up when their PCs crashed, these customers were unable to restore all of their files from Carbonite. So I took the plunge with their Black Friday deal that included backup for my computer and external hardrive. He said he uses it with a number of clients with good results. Carbonites one mistake was not backing up their data. I can't tell how good Carbonite is at backing up the files until something goes wrong which makes me nervous. It uses minimal CPU time, and it doesnt use more memory than any other backup tool (or your average antivirus). We dont care if the replicated database isnt backed up, but we sure do want to know when the production database isnt! I am FAR more willing to give credence to a CEO who takes the time to defend what he/shes helping create than someone who main weapons are venom, a thesaurus, and have absolutely no idea how much this company spends on whatever they do and it makes no damn difference either way because if the service works, its affordable, and reliable then why the hell are you not helping these folks.