Monday, April 21, 2008

Using Carbonite to Back up Our Blog

Ann earlier told us that she has subscribed to Carbonite, the on-line backup service.  She has the Penrose Mornings blog backed up in case any of us crashes.  In an article in the April 2 USA Today, Jefferson Graham reviews the use of the Carbonite service.  For now, the backup rate is rather slow if someone wants to back up an entire hard drive, but would be much faster for smaller numbers of GBs.  I had hoped to sign up for it ($49 per year, unlimited storage, and ability to store any kind of file), but so far Carbonite is just for the unenlightened folks who still use PCs and not for the 5% who have seen the light and use Macs.  Since maintaining and preserving our blog is a critical matter, I'm trying to keep us up to date on backing up.  I'm looking forward to considering reorganizing and printing options as we go along.  For now, we just can't afford to lose what we already have.  You can read the article here.

6 comments:

Ann said...

I am intrigued with the comment about their backup being slow. When I signed up for Carbonite, all of my files were backed up with 24 hours. When I create a new file in Word for the day's Blog record, that file is backed up by the time I have completed that document. MAC users - bah humbug!

Anonymous said...

You must have an extremely fast connection or an extremely boring life (no pics, videos, other files).

Anonymous said...

Hi there. I work for Carbonite and I thought I'd clarify a couple of things. First off, I wanted to let you know that we're working hard on a Mac version of Carbonite. The Beta version is expected to be out sometime in mid-2008.

As far as the backup being slow, your upload speed will be very dependent on your internet connection speed. Most DSL users can upload between 2-3 GB per day, so you can imagine that, yes, a full hard drive would take some time for the initial backup. If you only want to backup a few GB, then your initial backup will be relatively quick. After the initial backup, you’ll find that things move very quickly since only the parts of files that have changed are uploaded.

I hope that helps answer some of your questions, and I hope that you’ll check us out once we release Carbonite for the Mac. In the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to drop by our blog: Carbonite Blog

Thanks,
Alison

Elizabeth said...

So glad to know this is backed up. Hope we can find a way to publish all of the entries - it is becoming more and more of a record of things we might not have otherwise seen or appreciated. Thanks to all who contribute.

Ann said...

Hmmm - Boring doesn't really describe my life, so let's just say I am happy with Carbonite.

Unknown said...

For those of you waiting for the Mac version, please send an email to jShlick@carbonite.com. Jenn will put you on the alert list for the free beta which starts in June.

Regarding the initial backup speed, it's just a function of how much stuff you have on your computer and the speed of your Internet connection. Once the initial backup is complete, it never has to be repeated. Sometimes it does take days or even a week. Most of the people who sign up for Carbonite haven't been properly backed up in months (or ever). So what's a few more days? :)

Dave Friend, CEO
Carbonite, Inc.
Carbonite Online Backup