Carbonite adds external drive backup

Carbonite backup service has added external drive backup to their Home Plus and Home Premier Plans. 

They now join CrashPlan in allowing users add external storage to their unlimited storage backup plan options.  Although I usually recommend Carbonite to my clients, crashplan has some multi computer offerings that are quite competitive.

The new feature has only been rolled out to windows users, but I expect Carbonite to release a mac compatible version soon.  It turns out that they offer what they call Mirror Image Backup to windows users as well:

Mirror Image backup:

“Backs up your operating system and software programs, as well as your files and folders, to an external hard drive. You will need an empty external hard drive to use this feature.”

It would be interesting to see how this is implemented, but it sounds like a great way to get a bootable version of your backup.  It would save the time of having to install all of that software….

 

 

April 4, 2012 – 11:39 pm Categories: Backup | Post a comment

Dolly Drive – Redirect your Time Machine backup to the cloud

Dolly Drive is a cloud backup service that leverages Apple’s Time Machine backup system (that is included with every mac).  They are a new entry into the cloud backup market, having been introduced to the world at the end of January of this year.  Dolly Drive is the only product that is able to take advantage of Time Machine as a cloud service.

The nice thing about using Time Machine is that it is super simple to use and setup.  One of Time Machine’s great feature is that it store iterations, so that you can go back to a certain date and restore a specific version of a file.  One of the downsides of time machine is that when it fails it is almost impossible to repair without losing huge chunks of iterations.  Since Apple’s time machine support is lackluster at best it might be a good thing to work with the Dolly Drive people, because they might actually no how to fix some of Time Machine’s ongoing issues.

The offer a tiered pricing scheme that allows you to backup machines with hard drives of almost all sizes, however they do not offer any unlimited solutions.  There product pricing starts $5.00 per month for 50 gigs of storage that increases by 5 gigs every month.  That is neat feature, and it means that as your storage needs increase (which they will), your costs stay the same.

I have not used the service, but I am eager to give it a try and see how the performance is.  If anyone out there has used let me know what you think.

JCL

May 25, 2011 – 1:37 pm Categories: Backup | Post a comment

Mozy drops unlimited backup

Mozy, whose parent company EMC has decided to not renew any contracts that have unlimited backup storage in the Mozy Home product.  When the renewal is up, they automatically switch you to a per gigabyte rate.

There new pricing scheme starts at $5.99 per month for 50 gigs on one computer, and $9.99 for 125 gigs on 3 computers.  I am not a big fan of this approach because it forces the user to have to administer how much stuff he or she has…

I would recomend service form Carbonite or Crash Plan.  They both have unlimited storage options with an automatic mode.

 

JCL

May 22, 2011 – 10:21 pm Categories: Backup | Post a comment

Netflix Outage – putting there money where there mouth is…..

It is rare in this day of unlimited uptime, that anyone would dare mention downtime, let alone issue credit for the lack of service.  Netflix has done just that.  They had an incident on March 23rd that prevented its streamed content to viewed by its subscribers.

Email from Netflix...

Even though my refund is almost 24 cents, it they have to pay it back to the entire 12 million subscribers it will cost them over $288,000 if all were effected.  It is unclear what the numbers are on those effected, it could have only been me, although I doubt that.

Here is the

It would be amazing if other services that we subscribed to would be as forthright as netflix. If AT&T credited everyone for the calls they dropped, they would be bankrupt, but some form of compensation would be nice.  Maybe some of theses larger corporations can take a cue from Netflix and admit when they make a mistake…

 

joeNYC

March 24, 2011 – 5:02 pm Categories: Backup | Post a comment

A bus with a backup problem

I have not posted in a while, but I wanted to point out that all kinds of things run into problems with backing up.

This was on Avenue U in Brooklyn, New York.

January 16, 2011 – 4:25 pm Categories: Backup | Post a comment

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Facebook backup Update

It took almost a day to get my confirmation email from Facebook to download my backup file.  I downloaded the file and went through the contents, overall I was pretty happy with the results.

The only issue that I have is that the pictures that facebook includes in there restore file are at Facebook’s display resolution, not the resolution that the photo’s were updated in.

While that was a little disappointing, the fact that Facebook added this functionality is awesome.

December 18, 2010 – 2:53 pm Categories: facebook | Post a comment

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How to backup your FaceBook account

Get a copy of the data you’ve put on Facebook:

This is one of the newer features of the new more open and transparent FaceBook.  They introduced this feature 2-3 months ago, but it has taken me this long to find it.

Here is what they have to say about it:

“This tool lets you download a copy of your information, including your photos and videos, posts on your wall, all of your messages, your friend list and other content you have shared on your profile. Within this zip file you will have access to your data in a simple, browseable manner.  Learn More  about downloading a copy of your information.”

They then let you know when the download is available via email.  You can get to this feature by clicking on the”Account” section under the “Settings” tab there is a “Learn More” link by download your information towards the bottom of the page.

I am still waiting for my email confirmation and download link.  I’ll let you know how it goes…

November 22, 2010 – 1:39 pm Categories: Backup | Post a comment

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Mozy – simple online backup

Mozy, Mozyis a great online backup service. It is one of 2 commercial products that has marketed themselves directly to the consumer and offer an unlimited download plan, as well as some business packages.

It is simple and easy to setup and not only lets you do an online unlimited backup, but it also lets you setup a local backup.  It is the most common automatic backup solution that I setup for my clients.  Importantly, it encrypts your data, so that it can not be sniffed out in transit.

You can download the Mozy client for Mac or PC at the website, but you need to create an account (and enter in a credit card number) to use it.  I think they have some sort of 30 day trial, but I do know they offer a 2 year discount.

The installation is a breeze and takes several minutes.  The default configuration should create a backup profile which includes all the files in the Users or Documents and Settings.  It does not pickup files that are not in those areas, but you can add directories to the backup profile, by setting it in the options area, however you need to be online to see or change the options.

The length of the first backup can take hours, to days, to several weeks depending on how much data you are backing up and how fast your internet connection’s upload speed is. You can check your upload speed at Speedtest.net Some backup solutions cap file sizes at 4 gigabytes, but Mozy has no size restrictions for there premium home service, however they limit the backup to hard disks stored within your computer (which can be 8 terabytes if you have a MacPro).  I am not sure how they can tell, but there obviously has to be a way.

Restoring from Mozy can happen in two ways, you can select the files to restore and then Mozy will email you when they are ready for download and you can either download them or elect to have them sent to you on DVD with costs starting at $29.95, and they  can next day mail them to you for an extra fee of course.

Restoring is usually the achilles heal of any backup system, and Mozy does a decent job of making that process more simple than some of the other products that I have used.  It is important to test your ability to restore no matter what backup system or method you choose.

Testing this out before you actually need it can save your sanity, because the last thing you want to do is learn that your system is flawed when you actually need a file restored.

November 16, 2010 – 2:45 pm Categories: 3-2-1 Rule, Backup, Backup Strategy | Post a comment

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Backup Email

This is an easy one…  It is crucial to always have at least 2 ways to send email, by having accounts with at least 2 providers.  Most email providers ask that you provide them with a secondary address anyway.

I cannot predict the future, but it is feasible that one or more large email providers like Gmail, Windows Live Mail or AOL email will have a failure that will interrupt the service they provide, or worse yet, you could be locked out of your account entirely.

Since most of these companies do not believe in human being based support, having a secondary email account would allow you to at least communicate without having to go through the trouble of setting up a new email account while your panicked, about not have access to your primary account.

The main problem of having a secondary email account is keeping track of it.  It is easy to forget the obscure email address’, and then it is even harder to remember the passwords associated with them. There are several ways to go about dealing with, but I think the best way is to get over it and get used to having regular access to 2 or more email accounts.

With all the passwords we have to keep track of, its time to start thinking about password managers.  Stay tuned for an article about that.

November 5, 2010 – 10:37 pm Categories: Backup, email, password | Post a comment

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Xmarks, Sync your bookmarks between computers and browsers.

Xmarks,

Xmarks

browser bookmark syncing

formerly know as foxmarks was designed to sync bookmarks between Firefox and safari on the OS X.  Xmarks has come along way from its dual browser compatibility, and now currently works for Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer on both Mac and Windows.

Xmarks has gained some notoriety over the last several weeks as the developers decided to stop investing time in the project, and they had announced a sunset date for the xmarks servers.  You can read about it in the blog entry “The end of the road for Xmarks.” So many users responded to the announcement, that fortunately someone is going to make it work with a freemium model.

The other features that Xmarks boasts is the ability to sync password’s and history.  Its also great for synchronizing browsers between different computers or the same computer if you are using multiple operating systems.

The great thing about synchronizing bookmarks separate from your normal in-band backup, is that restoring your bookmarks is a breeze.

I appreciate free software that has a unique use.  Unfortunately, I do see them charging for their service in the near future, when they figure out what business model works for them.  Taking into consideration that Google Chrome offers this feature along with the ability to sync all of your settings, (if you are a registered user) might detract them from charging non-commercial users.  I still think Xmarks is still better.

November 1, 2010 – 9:48 pm Categories: Backup, bookmark backup, sync | Post a comment

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