Computing Unplugged: How does it work with other external hard drives?

Friend: We don't back up external hard drives on the standard version. Carbonite "Plus" which is coming out next month does back up external hard drives.

Computing Unplugged: What other programs can cause glitches with the backup process

Friend: There are no known incompatibilities.

Computing Unplugged: Just how unlimited is unlimited backup?

Friend: With regard to "is unlimited truly unlimited?", the answer is yes, it is truly unlimited. There is no maximum bytes/day either, as there is with some backup products. Our biggest user is somewhere around 350 GB. We lose money on this customer, obviously.

In my opinion, DSL is just too slow for anything over 100GB. My DSL is about 300kbps upstream, so that translates to about 2.5GB per day. I don't think too many people want their initial backup to take a month or more, so it tends to be self-limiting. But some people appear to be very patient.

Our conclusion
This one's tough to recommend. Obviously, at $50 per year for unlimited backup, Carbonite's offer is almost too good to be true. But with really big hard drives, slower upload speeds, and no guarantee your data will be secure if the company tanks, it's a risky bet.

In February 2006, the company got $2.5M in investment from two angel investors. TechCrunch says they've gotten a total of $7M in investment as of September 2006. In May, they completed another $15M in Series B investment. That's enough to outfit a data center, hire a staff, and run for a year or so.

The question you need to answer is whether it's more risky to do backups the way you're doing them now (or not doing them now), compared to some potential risk of another Internet bomb. After all, it's not like we haven't seen venture-backed companies fail before.

Heather Wardell received her first Palm handheld in 1997 (from a boss who couldn't get the hang of Graffiti) and has never looked back. She worked in banking as a systems analyst for four years, and then moved into elementary education, teaching computers at a private elementary school for four years. Heather is now a full-time writer with two main specialties: articles that explain how a particular technology works, and short stories that usually involve technology run amok. You can reach her on the Web at http://www.heatherwardell.com.