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Carbonite just basically saved my hide. My 6 month old Lenovo died (not impressed with IBM's "Atlanta based" tech support...talked to 7 techs....able to UNDERSTAND only 1)...but in "their" assessment, I had a hard drive failure, even their system recovery couldn't read the drive. They sent me a replacement drive and I "restored" my data files from Carbonite. I also have a seagate backup drive. It also had a failure (i/o error which I gather, from all the posts I've found online, is not all that rare with external drives)...so those files I'd backed up on that drive were mostly inaccessible (I did discover a small program that enables you to SOMETIMES find files on drives "inaccessible" by that i/o failure.

At any rate, 3 weeks after failure, I'm pretty much back to a full system. I guarantee that THIS time every single file will be on the Carbonite system! I'm also planning to have at least one other redundant system!

Jim,
Amen to Jim's post on Carbonite. I resisted a long time, but finally decided to give it a try. I have a lot of stuff on my laptop (more than 120Gig) It took 4 days to do the initial backup. Now it backs up automatically everytime I log onto the web. For $49 bucks per year, it is great insurance. Everytime you change a file or create a file it backs it up automatically.

I have been an e-PRO for about 5 years now and it was absolutely the best thing that I have done for my real estate career. I have been able to move forward with a technology plan that worked and has given me the confidence to make adjustments and try new things.

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I should be doing this. I have an external hard drive, but hardly ever pull it out of the drawer. I back up individual collections online. All my photos are on Flickr, all my important docs are on Google Docs, videos on YouTube, all my contacts are in my e-newsletter interface. I worry about my music though. I have it all on an iPod, but I don't even know if that would be a help if I totally crashed.

I have used Carbonite online backup for probably three years. When my laptop failed and I got a new laptop I restored everything to my laptop and it worked flawlessly. It was great having everything back as though there had been no change.

I have to agree with you. Online backups are a small price to pay. I remember the days when I used to do my backups onto 5 1/4" floppies. Just spend an hour or so switching those out and 50 bucks a year will seem like a bargain! Many people have privacy concerns about doing online backups. Fine. If it's something you wouldn't want the whole world to see, don't back it up online. For everything else, it's a small price to pay and the convenience is unbeatable.

Good information about "Back up my computer" I have though about it but have never done anything with it. Now that I know where to start I would look into.

I'm doing some research on online backup systems, and I have a question for those who have restored using Carbonite after a system failure.

Did Carbonite restore all of your hard drive, including software, or did you need to reload all your software and then restore data files using Carbonite?

I used a transfer program the last time I upgraded my computer, and it did a fairly good job of restoring software, too. There were a few programs I needed to reload from the disks, but not many. I'm wondering if Carbonite works the same way.

Thanks for your help.

Kathleen

2/18/2009 @ 9:31 PM HST

I love the idea of online back-ups and Carbonite sounds perfect. But here's what I'm still wresting with, so please, someone convince me:

1. I know the data is encrypted, but I worry about how safe and private it is. Theoretically could someone at Carbonite view my files?

2. What happens if Carbonite goes out of business? Besides finding having to find another provider, does Carbonite somehow have part of all of my data and files? That makes me uncomfortable.

3. For those who use Carbonite or a similar program, do you still use a manual back-up or do you rely completely on the program?


With Warmest Aloha,

Ruth A. Gabbard (R), CRB, CRS, SRES, PB
Gabbard Hawaii Properties | Honolulu, Hawaii
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