The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #137096   Message #3133969
Posted By: JohnInKansas
12-Apr-11 - 05:36 PM
Thread Name: Tech.Carbonite back up service. Good?
Subject: RE: Tech.Carbonite back up service. Good?
I don't know anything much about specific such services but one of the concerns is that when a "server farm" goes down, there often are hundreds (or more) users demanding recovery. You have no way of knowing whether your treasures will have priority relative to all the others. In such cases, there's often some "acceptable loss" and the bigger guys (with the premium contracts) might lose the least.

No backup is worth much without a regular and systematic way of keeping the stored information up to date. Some systems require you to log in and do the updates manually, which doesn't relieve you of much burden. Others provide "automatic" backup, but those require hookups, server traffic, and allowing access to your machine by others who aren't really members of your family. Servers, and transmissions, can be hacked or intercepted about as easily as individual machines in many cases, and "big" doesn't necessarily mean more secure.

Regardless of your plans when you set up a backup system, it eventually will end up including information that you likely wouldn't want made "indiscriminately public."

A 1T portable USB hard drive is around $120 (US) now and gives you complete control of your archive, and can go with you if you leave home in a hurry. (1T external desktop HDs are cheaper, but won't survive much moving around, regardless of how careful you are.)

No recommendations. Just some things to consider.

John