Backup is something that you do after you lose your data. It's the truth. Your Mother can't teach you about backup. You simply learn about it after you crash, or delete, or overwrite. And it hurts.
Every week, I get a call from some freaked out user. The common complaint, "I turned off my
computer last night. This morning I turned it on and it says something about not being able to find the operating system. Does this mean that I've lost my files?"
It's important to understand that hard drives crash. They are mechanical devices that are measured in an honest statistic call mean time between failures (MTBF). It's not mean time between successes. While the MTBF continues to increase with the release of new hard drives, which is good, in any production run of hard drives, some are going to last 5 seconds and others will last 10 years. So, which one did you purchase?
Enter the need for backup. There is a program available that will automatically backup the data on your hard drive over the Internet. It simply works reliably, and get this, you can get unlimited data storage space for $49.95 a year. Now you have to trust me on this – I've tried nearly all of the Internet-based backup systems available. If you have a large amount of data as I do, they cost a lot, and don't work well. The secret to successful Internet-based backup is to be able to first make a complete backup of all data and then backup only changed or new data. If you try to do this with a large amount of data, most of these programs fail miserably. Some companies even resort to suggesting that you send your data to them on an external hard drive to create the initial backup. Humm… doesn't sound like the Internet-based services that I want.
The program that I am talking about is called Carbonite - www.carbonite.com. Check it out. You will be impressed. Now you can Consider It Fixed!
Please post a comment if this has been helpful to you.
Contact info: info@consideritfixed.com
Sounds good, but this little blurb from their terms of use page is a little bit scary to me:
Changes to the Service
Carbonite has the right at any time to change, modify, add to or discontinue or retire any aspect or feature of the Carbonite Products including, but not limited to, the software, hours of availability, equipment needed for access or use, the maximum disk space that will be allotted on Carbonite servers on your behalf either cumulatively or for any particular service or the availability of Carbonite Products on any particular device or communications service. Carbonite has no obligation to provide you with notice of any such changes.
Posted by: MrGone | May 18, 2007 at 10:17 AM