Online back up - Carbonite vs Mozy or other?

[beijingaling]

I have a scary amount of photos and want another place to back them up. I have 2 hard drives at home that are regularly backed up but I can't face losing photos again - it's happened too many times.

I'm thinking of online back up with Carbonite or Mozy or ...?

Has anyone used them, found them good or have any other comments/pointers?

I have not used it personally, but Carbonite certainly had some good reviews a while ago, when being compared with BT's Digital Vault, because (at the time, and hopefully still the case!) there was no fixed limit on the amount you backed up, while there was a stingy 5 GB limit on the BT one.

Things may have changed and another factor is whether you are using Windows or not, as plenty of the solutions I've seen/tried like Humyo expect you to be familiar with Windows and make add-ons like folder extensions or backup solutions to archive any changes at intervals or on the fly...

Will look out for a recent comparison from a reputable magazine for you (rather than some commission-based "comparison" site which limits which they include).

I used to prefer Jungle Disk for the added file sharing/syncronisation but now I go with Carbonite for backup and Dropbox for synchronisation - both are brilliant.

Thank you both. Networkguy I'm Mac based and have approx 300g that needs backing up so unlimited storage seems to be the way to go!

With that much data, you may run into problems with your ISP as quantities of data passed across their network may be limited. Being nosy, which ISP do you use ? A tiny number offer accounts where they do not 'count' how much you Send, but only count what you Download... of course if you ever really needed to download that amount of data, you'd suffer with most ISPs as the download quantity would be significant.

Yes, unlimited remote storage may seem great, but I have fears that even Carbonite might not be that enthusiastic to have you as a customer !! I will have to 'watch this space' and hope you give some updates...

Bear in mind that at 1Mbps upstream it will take about a month running 24/7 to upload 300GB.

Ok so I bought carbonite on the basis that they can send disks if I need the data so I don't have to download it all if need be. Started with my laptop which is 25g. I'll let you know how long it takes and my experience.

Networkguy I'm in Beijing and have no idea who my ISP is. We don't get a choice in my compound as it's all set up for you when you move in. In any case it's a choice between china unicom and china telecom afaik.

Ah, sorry, should have guessed, but over here many ISPs have a monthly limit... budget level firms may have a 2 GB a month limit (counting both downloads and uploads). I can see that as you are outside the UK, and want to back everything up, then Carbonite certainly seems a sensible option.

I wasn't meaning to be deliberately nosy, but some ISPs are more flexible than others, over here, so might not mind such a quantity of data. Most say "unlimited" but have a "Fair Use Policy" which means they have limits and one only finds out when they get in touch with a "you've been overusing the network, stop it!" message. Some might even say "find another ISP" if they are really angry.

It's just a bit of a warning for when you are back (?) in the UK. AAISP.Net may be worth looking at if you continue to want to use Carbonite, as they don't count the uploaded traffic (so a radio station for example, pumping out an audio stream to some service for their listeners, would not need to worry about that constant outgoing traffic).

I'm using CrashPlan having switched from Mozy when they took their unlimited package away. Been very impressed so far.

Have just seen that CrashPlan offers the ability to fill an external (1 TB) USB drive and send it back to them to do the initial backup. It does cost a fair amount, and only available for US states and AFPO (free for military who are overseas, which is a patriotic move!).

Given Beijingaling's 300 GB it would have been handy though clearly not a possibility given service they offer at present. Can see CrashPlan being well named, while others may encourage more casual use as a filestore for possible sharing between office/home etc.

Didn't realise you were actually in China. Things are going to be very different for you as the whole Chinese internet sits behind a firewall that may or may not let encrypted backup traffic get to/from the relevant IP addresses. I see that both Mozy and Carbonite have data centres in China which presumably enables them to avoid any problems, but I don't think you'll find much experience of them on a UK based forum!