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Carbonite and DropBox keep me safe and sane.
Having had hard drives crash over the years, I know how important backups are. Many years ago, I was making a backup of all my important data to my re-writeable DVD. It was such a hassle that I only got around to it every three or four months, but at least I was doing something.
But, right in the middle of that backup, it all went to hell. The computer crashed, the hard drive died, and the backup was corrupted. I lost years of work and had no backup. In an attempt to recover from this complete cluster-f**k, I sent the hard drive to the kind of specialists who wear space suits and work in a clean room and recover your data bit-by-bit. They quoted me a very big number (over a grand) and said it was unlikely I’d get anything back anyway.
I told them to toss the drive and I very seriously considered shutting down my business that day.
Flash forward to today. I now pay a measly $49.95/year/computer for unlimited backups of my data on Carbonite. It’s a great “set it and forget it” system for making sure everything important is automatically, always backed up to the cloud.
The peace of mind of knowing everything is always backed up is wonderful. I continually recommend this service to people, though most seem to be more comfortable with having their data on a DVD where they feel in control. Of course they only make backups once in a while, and if their house burns down, the DVD’s are going with it and they lose all their photos and financial records. But that’s their problem. I’m safe with Carbonite.
Yesterday, something new came out on the market called DropBox, which is something I’ve been waiting for. DropBox allows you to sync your information between computers, have shared folders between friends/colleagues, or grab your important files from any Internet connected computer. It is totally seamless, so anyone can just start using it.
Up until now, I’ve been using Google docs for shared access to files, which is okay, but loses a lot of the formatting of Word and the accessibility of having my files on my own computer where I can use them offline. Dropbox fixes both those problems, and at just the right time as I’m moving mostly offline.
Finally, I can put all my important files onto DropBox and they will be automatically synced between my computers, or friends who I share them with. They have free accounts with 2GB of data, and for $99.99/year, you get 50GB. I probably will be fine with the free account, but have no issue whatsoever paying for this great service.
Just to make things even easier, I’m also following this advice and installing PasswordSafe to create and manage complex passwords. Then I can just keep that encrypted file in my DropBox folder so I can access my passwords from anywhere. It isn’t too hard to get passwords into a web site, but it would be nice if it had browser plug-ins. Of course, my browsers can remember my passwords on my laptop, so I only need to do it manually when I’m elsewhere.
My work-life is getting easier to manage today.
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September 17th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Interesting John - hey what are your thoughts on using Google Docs in combination with Gears for offline use?
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September 17th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
…and, if it’s not too much trouble, how about a demonstration video how you are using this please?
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September 17th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
[...] Carbonite and DropBox keep me safe and sane. [...]
October 6th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Hi John,
I have been using Carbonite for the best part of a year now, and like you, while it was backing up files (in the background) I thought it was great. Gave me real peace of mind. However, since a major harddrive crash over a month ago, I no long feel able to sing Carbonite’s praises to the same extent as you have done here.
My experiece is that it takes forever to restore files. And by forever what I really mean is weeks and weeks! I have broadband, yet restoring files from Carbonite makes it feel like I am back in the nineties using a dial-up connection. You will note that Carbonite don’t actually give you a guide as to how long it will take to restore your files. From my own experiece, I would guestimate the restore time is probably going to work out at double or even treble the time it initially took to upload them all to Carbonite in the first place. I could be wrong on that, but it certainly has not been a speedy process getting them back, in my experience. I even left the computer on 24/7 so it can get on with the restore while the computer was not in use, and it still took weeks!
Also, the order in which files are restored can be infuriating, you may need specific files straight away, but changing the restore order doesn’t always work, as the program tends to default to the order it wants to use!
The final problem I experienced was Carbonite froze up while there were still some 13,000 files waiting to be restored to my computer. In fact, Carbonite has been frozen for the past two weeks now and despite emails back and forth, their technical support are still scratching their heads. I had built up a backup store on Carbonite of over 300,000 files - which might sound a lot, but you’d be amazed how many files you actually have when you stop to count them! I was using some 60Gb of storage space on Carbonite; but when you stop to consider modern harddrives are now usually over 200, 300 or even 500Gb, 60Gb shouldn’t have been a problem.
Meanwhile, I cannot re-start backing up my new hard drive as if I do the files still on the Carbonite server — ie the ones not yet restored — will be deleted automatically, as they won’t match any files on my harddrive and Carbonite will therefore deem them suitable for deletion, resulting in the total loss of those 13,000 files, which I can’t currently get at. Aaaghh!
In my view, removable storage devices (DVD, or, even better, rotating two alternating external hard drives via the USB) managed by a backup program that you can schedule to run daily, still have a lot going for them. At least you can then lock them away in a fireproof data safe — which won’t cost much more than a Carbonite subscription, and that overcomes any worries of a house fire — or else store them at a friend’s house. But the biggest plus is you can then restore the exact data you want in a timely manner — hours rather than weeks, if you have lots of data.
I hope you never have to restore files from Carbonine, and if you do, I hope you never have a similar experience to mine.
Thanks, mac.
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