Space: Carbonite offers unlimited storage of backup from your main internal harddrive. Carbonite will not store data from external harddrives if you are using their "home" service. If you use their "small business" service this feature is offered. Files can be no larger than 4GB, which would make this not ideal if you have any HD video work you want to back up.
Reliability: Carbonite was founded in 2005. They claim that they have backed up over a 100 billion files and have restored over 7 billion files that would have been lost forever if they had not been backed up with Carbonite. Carbonite went public in the Stock Market on August 10, 2011 and their stock has been rising this week. Carbonite has a pretty high profile image and they should be around with your data for awhile.
Budget: There is a free 15 day trial. For $59.99 you can back up one computer with unlimited space. This is their "home" package. To back up external drives you need to go with their "Small Business" package which starts at $299.00 a year for 250GB.
File Sharing: No file sharing available.
Security: Carbonite uses a 128-bit Blowfish encryption for data back up and transmission. However part of the security of having your files backed up online is if your harddrive crashes you can always restore the file from their servers. In 2007 Carbonite purchased over 3 million dollars of faulty equipment, which resulted in the loss of customer data. Since then they have switched server providers. In general this is an issue that one should be aware of with all Cloud storage, not just Carbonite.
Platform Compatibility: PC/Mac, iphone, Android & Blackberry.
Interface: Interface is simple. When Carbonite is backing up your computer its is transparent. You don't notice. Recovering files is also very simple.
Conclusion: Carbonite is a no-frills back up service. If you are just looking for backup of your recording files in case of hard drive crash or any other computer tragedy than this sounds like it might be the right thing. They offer enough space for backing up recording files, but it means that you have to keep those files on your machine and can't have them on an external drive. Carbonite has been around for over 6 years doesn't seem to be going anywhere so I feel like my data is safe in that aspect. They use sophisticated encryption methods which is also assuring. They did have that data loss issue in 2007 due to faulty servers, but that seems to be a one off occurance. They stack up with SOS online and Drop box with their platform compatibility and easy interface. Where they fall down with me is on the lack of file sharing and the fact that they will not back up external hard drives. These are both deal breakers for me. However, if you don't need these features and just want a simple backup service, this may be the one for you.
Until next time... over N out
RED
