Back up your computer online
A couple of months ago a friend contracted a particularly nasty virus on her PC and after many hours spent trying to resuscitate the machine, I had to break the bad news that she had lost everything on there. If only she'd had backed up her system using Carbonite, she would still be watching those dubiously-downloaded James Bond films today.
The software allows you to keep a backup of your entire hard disk on the company's servers, so that if the worst ever happens, you've still got a copy of everything safe and sound. After registration with the site and installation of the client, Carbonite connects itself to the Net and automatically begins uploading your data to its backup server. This process can take a long time so you need a quick Internet connection to make it as painless as possible.
The great thing about Carbonite is that it's so simple to operate and you get unlimited storage capacity for your backups, although I noticed you cannot backup personal video files over 2Gb. Once your data is uploaded onto the Carbonite servers it can perform regular backups at a rate of 2Gb per day. Provided you're comfortable transferring all your data to an external server, Carbonite makes for the perfect way to ensure you never lose any of your data.
User reviews about Carbonite Online Backup
by Anonymous
Great idea for 5GB Average Customer!.
I have been using Unlimited Online Backup now for over 12 Months and because of the throttling back of Carbonites Bandwidth when your backup becomes too large for them my awaiting backup gets larger I was 5GB from having full up to date backup after running the backup for 12 Months iMac on 24/7 but now its 30GB and rising so I had to uninstall it even though I paid for 3 Years.How does the advert go your life is on our computer back it up. Well Carbonite Online Unlimited Backup not bad if your life is very short but if you have 80 Years or more of family pictures on your computer like myself you need a good reliable backup not Carbonite. Carbonite works ok at first Carbonite customer service tell me now that their average customer has just 5GB of backup that works ok but if you have more than that like me they cut the upload band width to a unusable trickle. Pros:
Unlimited Backup!
Cons:
Full up to date backup never possible due to slow upload speed.
CPU intensive.
Hard drive intensive disk always running.
Carbonite say that their average customer have 5GB of backup.
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by Anonymous
Carbonite Online Backup.
Advertised as unlimited online backup for one fee. Seems amazing for someone with 500GB accumulated photos and movies of the family. Free oneself of the external hard drive which could be stolen or lost too!While accurate in many respects, this is not a practical service for any one with > 200GB to backup. Up until 200GB, the program backed up about 3GB per day. For a large 600GB collection this should take > 6 months. While this is long, it may be worth it to have such a safe storage solution offsite. What they don't tell you until you look at the fine print is that they throttle your data after 200GB to a trickle: 100 kbps (kilobits per second) To backup 300 GB at this rate would take a year. This is not practical for most and makes the claim of unlimited backup misleading at best. Good solution for those with < 200GB to backup.
Pros:
Easy interface and set up.
Secure backup
Cons:
Essentially impractical for those with > 200GB to backup - poorly noted in website and advertisements. More