What are your backup plans?
One evening a couple years ago, I left my laptop charging directly in the wall outlet. The next morning, it was fried from a power surge. Fortunately I was able to extract the hard drive and retrieve my data from it by using a special laptop-harddrive-to-IDE cable to attach to my desktop PC. It could have been worse. Now I make sure everything important is always plugged into surge protectors.A couple years prior to that, my external hard drive that contained my music, pictures, freelance files and other important files, started making whirring and clicking sounds after 5 or 10 minutes of being turned on, before automatically shutting down. Fortunately for me again, I was able to copy files away from it in batches before the shutdown. It could have been worse.
My most recent backup solution was to copy all of my music and pictures to DVDs that now sit collecting dust on my shelf in the event that they are needed. This is definitely a good plan, but the last time I did that was at least a year ago. Plus, what if there is a fire or burglary? There must be an easier way.
Carbonite
Enter Carbonite, a very inexpensive, off-site, automatic, and secure file backup and restore service. It is highly-rated and works on both Windows and Mac platforms.Secure
This is obviously an important factor when giving a third-party access to your private documents. Carbonite states:We encrypt your files twice before backing them up securely offsite, using the same encryption techniques that banks use. Files remain encrypted at our secure data centers, so only you can see them.
Automatic
It knows what to backup and what not to back up. Music, pictures, documents, your desktop, etc. It runs in the background for a few days for one big initial backup. Then once it is done, it automatically backs up only new or changed files. The handy status window available from the System Tray shows you the current progress and the files that are currently backing up:
Customizable
It is very easy to tell Carbonite what files/folders you do and do not want backed up. It integrates with Windows in two ways:- Dots in the bottom left corner of icons.
- No dot means it will not be backed up
- A Yellow dot means backup is pending
- A Green dot means it has been backed up
- A donut means that a folder contains some files that are to-be-backed-up and some that are not to be backed up.
- The right-click context menu for files and folders contains a new "Carbonite" item that allows you to change the backup options:
- Don't back this up
- Back this up
- Back this up as soon as possible, to bump up a pending backup in the queue
Easy to Restore
Once your files are backed up, how easy is it to restore? Very. Carbonite shows up in Windows Explorer as if it were another hard drive. Simply browse your Carbonite drive, right-click on the files or folders you want to restore, and you can restore to the same location, restore to another location, or restore previous versions.
15 Day Free Trial
Download Carbonite here. You'll get a free 15 day trial. Then for unlimited backup, it is $55 per year, or even less if you sign up instead of the trial or buy for more than 1 year at at time. Oh and I get 3 months of backup free if you sign up ;)To me, the peace of mind of knowing my important files are securely backed up at all times is well worth the price. What are your backup plans?
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