Online Backup Guide

Just a couple of days ago I was furious to have a disastrous hard drive failure and I was banging my head all around on the walls for not having a proper backup! I lost them all! All the data and everything! Gone forever! It contained my personal and financial information, some frozen frames of those delicate moments with my loved ones and other important files! So, if you want to save them, it is better you give a try to the Carbonite online backup! I was looking for some backup system last night when I came across this product and thought of giving it a try. Guess what? I like it in spite of its some obvious drawbacks. I thought of keying down my experience so that I can share it with you!

What I found interesting is that Carbonite is a remarkable simple and easy to use service. The files are basically backed up from a remote computer connected to the internet. It has more of a personal flavor than a business outlook and has a nominal fee of $54.95 a year! Well, that sounds interesting to me!

The Backend Guy

There are certain irreplaceable contents in our computer. Carbonite automatically backs them up and provides security against data loss. There is a small software pre-installed which runs at the backend and backs up all the modified and new files automatically…good for a lazy bug like me! When Carbonite is installed a separate drive is created with a lock like icon on display. This is actually the remote storage for all the files in your computer. To make it even simpler, you can integrate it with the desktop.

Carbonite Security Backup

My Concern

Since this is an online back-up system, the major concern I had was the security from the hackers. Well, Carbonite did a good job in winning my confidence. It encrypts the file twice before backing it up. The encryption technique is quite similar to that of the banks and the encrypted data is secured in data centers which can be easily accessed by the users only.

A Child’s Game!

Things cannot get simpler. There is no manual work involved and all that we need is done automatically. The Carbonite will automatically back up your important files once the computer is left idle. If you are working on your computer, i.e. if your computer is active, Carbonite goes idles so that it does not slow down the internet speed and does not consume enough of the system memory. I really liked this behavior!

File Restoration

OK, we are not perfect and we commit mistakes. We can accidentally delete some files on our computer. DON’T PANIC! Click on the drive and open the folder which contains all the backed up files. Simply copy and paste them on your computer drive. You have it back! Uh…Simple! Ain’t it?

Again the same old saying: Nothing is perfect! I was a little down because of this as I found some drawbacks of the Carbonite. Here are some of them that I found to be annoying and not up to the mark:

• First thing that I noticed is that you open a file and Carbonite refuses to back it up! It cannot back up the emails and financial documents if they are left open. So, every time want to back up a file, you need to press Alt+F4 or click the red cross on extreme right hand corner on top of the screen.
• There are certain occasions when you can come across complex situations like Blue Screen of Death when you try to back up a file.
• It will never back up multiple versions of the same document!
• It uses 15-Drive RAID 5 arrays instead of using RAID I configuration!

Well, after a night there is a day! Do not feel down. Here are some Pros to give you a smile:

• You can change the backup preferences at your will.
• It is easy to use, cheap and does things automatically!
• It offers unlimited backup. That really excited me.
• It gives full speed backup for the first 50GB.

Conclusion

In an overall statement, I will like to say that it can be one of the handiest tools at your disposal when you are looking for some backup options for your precious files.