Posted on November 24th, 2008 by Tim Danton

The joy of backup

I think it’s fair to say I’m all things that are wrong with man. I’ve known for many years that I really should have an organised backup plan in place, but – just like putting in my expenses form – I’ve been putting it off in favour of, you know, writing articles about backup. That sort of thing.

But about three weeks ago, after a brutal personal slur on my character by PC Pro’s deputy editor David Fearon, I finally did it. “For [insert preferred deity here]’s sake Tim, we’ve got the software on the cover disc, just load it up and follow the wizard.”

The software is Carbonite, which has been our favoured online backup software for many a month now, and the reason the software’s on our cover disc is because we managed to negotiate six months’ worth of free storage for PC Pro readers rather than the 15 days you’ll get if you go straight to www.carbonite.com.

[I've just re-read that paragraph and it sounds like a plug - but it is a fantastic deal! Before people start flaming me, take note that I've never before blogged about pieces of software that we happen to have on our cover disc...]

Now the reason I title this blog “The joy of backup” is that I really am gaining some sort of strange feeling of happiness from seeing those green dots. I even know it works. As regular readers of this blog will know, I did a clean install of Windows 7 on my work laptop, and so I had to reinstall Carbonite – when I did, I was asked if I wanted to restore all my backed up data too. Nice and simple.

So I implore you, take advantage (the issue, which is the one that says “eBooks: The verdict” on large letters, is on sale for another two-and-a-half weeks, and the software is on both the CD edition and the DVD edition). You too will load up Windows Explorer and see reassuring green dots next to the folders and files that have been backed up. You too will get a strange feeling of wellbeing.

And before anyone points out that I should have a form of physical backup as well, fear not – I’ve got a lovely external hard disk tucked away with all the data safe and sound.

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12 Responses to “ The joy of backup ”

Floyd Bradley Says:
November 24th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Tim,

Thanks for the compliments.

I started using Carbonite in May 06, the month it first came out. I was so impressed I joined the company.

Regards,
Floyd Bradley
EVP International
Clive Hilton Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Yes, I too was impressed by Carbonite, but after the trial period I decided not to continue. Why? Well, the unavoidable reality hit me when it occurred to me that I was entrusting my data to an outfit I knew nothing about, whose security policy wasn’t clear to me, and which could go titsup at any moment (especially in our troubled times). I emailed my concerns to the good people at Carbonite. And their response? Nada.
Floyd Bradley Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Clive,

I don’t know how you emailed your concerns to Carbonite, but let me try to respond now (even if it may be too late for you). First, we have raised $47 million of venture capital from 3i and Menlo Ventures, the company who funded Hotmail, Infoseek, UUnet, Vermeer Technologies, Ascend Communications and more than a hundred other successful start-ups. No other online backup company in the world has had this level of funding. Second, we still have $23 million cash left. Third, IF in the unlikely event an online backup company went under, you still have your original data on your PC. So you have lost nothing (other than the remaining months left of your subscription, which would be a trivial amount). Fourth, we encrypt your data twice, first by using a key based on your password and second by using the unique MAC address of your PC. After compressing the result, we then send it over a secure SSL/HTTPS link and store it on an array of servers in the encrypted, compressed format. If you don’t like us using your password for the key, there is even an option for you to use your own private key (however, if you lose that key, we will not be able to recover your data). We have 5+ petabytes of data stored for 300,000+ happy customers, so maybe some day you will try us out again and see that the convenience of 24×7x365 unlimited capacity, always-on data protection is worth the low price of $50 per year.

Regards,
Floyd
technogeist Says:
November 26th, 2008 at 12:09 am
After yet another hard drive failure this week, I’m now starting to consider having some form of online backup as a second line of defence. Thankfully none of my files have been lost as I use external usb drives. But what concerns me most is that the two disk that failed are less than 2 years old, and weren’t heavily used. I used to power them down after 10mins via power-management and didn’t foresee a failure for at least another 2-3yrs, there were no warnings via S.M.A.R.T either!

Initially I suspected the power supply, but it’s well within operating limits and has ~250w headroom.
Perhaps I got a bad batch, but I just can’t trust the manufacturer’s quality controls as much as I used to do.
Andrew Says:
November 26th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I took a slightly different approach. Based on the PC Pro (which I’ve subscribed to for many many years) A-List I went out and purchased Acronis True Image 2009 to use with my new 1.5tb external USB hard drive.

Unfortunately I couldn’t be less impressed.

I received the software last Thursday and promptly tried to install. There I hit the problems. It has a 64 character (I kid you not) serial number that’s required. Which to make things worse is slightly blurred and some characters could possibly be others. Still I’m pretty sure I can make the characters out.

So I type it and the software won’t accept it. The “submit” button just won’t light up. I triple check my typing and I’m sure it’s right.

So I look up the documentation and it says “sign up to the website – go to this page and we’ll send you are far more friendly code”.

So I sign up to the website and get one of those verification emails. I click on it and….. Error 500 on the web page. /doh !

Great – so I have a 64 character code that won’t be accepted and a website I can’t sign up to.

So I email Acronis. And on Sunday (of all days) they reply saying “send the 64 character serial number to them”. So I do…

Then nothing.. So I write again… Still nothing. So I write again to every email address I can find on their site.

Today I get an email back that makes no mention of the code I typed in and sent to them. Just stating could I sign up to their website (I’ve Tried !!!!)..

So on my 7th day after getting the software and much frustration I can’t even use it yet.!!

I’m really not impressed with this recommendation. Should of just used the Windows backup software.
Paul B Says:
November 26th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
@technogeist – Could you name names – I’d be interested if you could tell us if the two drives that have failed are from the same manufacturer, and what manufacturer that was?
Andrew Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Short Update.

It appears that Acronis have fixed their website. Last night I was finally able to sign-up and login.

An email from their support team then pointed out that many of the 64 character codes they issued are invalid. Therefore there is a specific web page that I was pointed to where you can enter the old invalid code and get given a new valid code.

I was then able to enter that new code and now the software is active.

I did a full backup last night and setup 2 regular backup jobs, so I’ll see how they go and test a restore soon.
Noel Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Is it correct that Carbonite will only back up data, whereas Acronis is supposed to back up not only data but also programmes and the operating system? So that, if the hard disc crashes, Acronis can provide a complete restoration of operating system and data, but Carbonite cannot?

If so, Acronis would seem to provide better backup. Does anyone have practical experience of this?
David Bayon Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 11:27 am
@Noel: Acronis can image your entire drive to be restored should anything fail, but that’s not quite the same as a backup – I wouldn’t want to image my PC too often as it’s pretty time consuming, so you need a regular data backup too.

To be honest, I’d recommend having something like Acronis running a full image every month or so, but backing up just data to an external disk each week. Then complement that with Carbonite to add an extra off-site layer of cover for your data – it backs up files as they’re changed so it’ll be more up to date than a scheduled backup.
Pete Morris Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I love backups too. I had anumber of crashes over the years and like Tim eventually realised backups are a good idea, so I bought a RAID controller and let it do the backups for me. Problem was the raid controller hardware failed and scrambled the disks. So I started to use MS backup. This worked fine until I tried a recover, when I discovered the index file was not backed up with the data. I am currently having a months long dialogue with the suppliers of my current back up software because it won’t do what I want. Perhaps I shouild try Carbonite. It sounds good. By the way, do not rely on a single external drive. There are only two kinds of hard drive in the world, those that have failed and those that have not failed yet.
technogeist Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
OK,
1. Western Digital Caviar ‘Blue’ WD1600BB – failed motor.
Does anyone know if vertically-mounted drives suffer more wear and tear than horizontally mounted drives?

2nd drive, Seagate (250GB 7200.10) is now O.K since testing it with SeaTools.
I think the BIOS might have been gotten confused as to what it saw at boot time when the Western Digital drive went down.

The WD disk was originally inside a USB caddy, which I replaced with a Seagate disk. (luckily)
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