Karmic Konsumer

I needed a backup solution that was easy and trustworthy and preferably one that I don’t have to manage constantly. I also wanted one (again, preferably) off site in case something happened to my computer like theft or fire. I decided to use Carbonite based upon a Lifehacker story comparing Carbonite to other services. I got 15 days to try it out for free so I figured, what the heck. I tried it.

From moment one, Carbonite was really simple to use. I set up an account and was backing up within minutes. It installs a small client to your computer and that client is smart enough to either pick out the most commonly backed up files - or to allow you to choose what to back up and what not to. There were lots of warnings that the initial back up could date over a week. It only backs up during idle time and it can only go as fast as the slowest of your network connection, internet connection and upload speed. Mine took three days to back up about 9G with a hard line to my high speed cable modem.

Once everything is initially backed up, it starts backing up only files that have been modified since they were backed up. You have the option of putting a tiny dot on the file icons in Windows explorer. Green dots mean they are backed up - orange means it’s in queue to be backed up. You don’t have to manually tell it to re-back something up. It just does it all automatically in the background. There is an option to make it a low priority internet connection too… so it won’t hog up bandwidth.

Shortly after I started using it, I decided to reload my computer. It was comforting to realize that I wasn’t going to have to go through the huge ordeal of finding an easy way to back up (now) 11G of data and files. I wasn’t going to have to make sacrifices to get it onto cds of go through the process of buying an external drive, hooking it up and moving stuff over. It was already done.

And so it was that within a month of using Carbonite, I also got to do a full restore with it. There were a few breathless moments when I realized I had just completely reimaged my machine and all of my files were gone. But the restore was, almost unbelievably, just as easy as the backup was. I went to their site, logged into my account, downloaded the software again and had a restore running within minutes. My download speed is way quicker than my upload speed so I told it what to restore and walked away and did other stuff. I came back to my computer and it was done. I was back up and running effortlessly.

It really is THAT easy to use. And if you don’t believe me, they let you try it out for 15 days for free, which for me, was enough time to figure out whether I wanted it or not.