Having owned a subscription to Carbonite for the last year I was essentially able to forget about the issue of backing up my computer as Carbonite quietly ran in the background. Over the last year all of my files have been backed up to a secure online backup server, encrypted, and archived just in case something went wrong on my home system. Just a month before my subscription expired I had to put it to the test. After a massive hard drive failure I turned to Carbonite backup to resotre all of my data (23 gigabytes worth of files, home videos, and music). Would the $50 a year investment pay off?
Restoring Data From Carbonite's Secure Online Backup Service
An online backup service is supposed to combat one of the often overlooked perils of backing up computer data. By moving the backup online the user negates the possibility that the backup itself can be destroyed in a catastrophic house fire or other event. Of course, restoring the data is the trickiest part, whether restoring from a DVD copy or from the Carbonite online backup server. In my case there were some problems doing the restore.
After restoring about 2 gigabytes of files the restore failed to continue through the remaining 22 gigabytes. After trying in vain to restart the restore myself I contacted Carbonite tech support via their online chat system (sorry folks, NO PHONE SUPPORT!). The tech person told me that there appeared to be a problem with the restore process and she needed a few additional resources to look at. After a few minutes of typing I was asked to send a log file to the support technician. An hour later I received an email with instructions on a registry edit I needed to make to help Carbonite be able to proceed with the restore.
Carbonite Online Backup Is Good But Not Perfect
As online backup services go Carbonite is definately one of the easiest to use, and is a great failsafe backup option. In this authors opinion it should not, however, be the only backup option used. A secondary backup software program that backs up to DVD or external hard drive should also be considered, especially when dealing with data that is irreplacable.
