Comments on: Carbonite Online Backup vs External Hard Drive: Is Carbonite Really Better?

By: Patricia J

Patricia J — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 01:51:38 +0000

NoCarboniteFan: That was what I thought of too before. Why go through all the hassle with an online backup service when my own backups were perfectly sufficient? It turned out they weren’t. I encountered a really destructive virus which practically wiped out my files including those on my backup drive. Now I use Mozy which is said to be as secure as Carbonite.

By: Dion

Dion — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 02:50:19 +0000

I agree that Carbonite makes the backup process simple and fuss-free. I’ve been using it for a year now and my pc hasn’t slowed down one bit. I would have been totally satisfied though if it allows network backup because I have both a laptop and desktop.

By: TravisVS

TravisVS — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 03:05:50 +0000

NoCarboniteFan:

Interesting moniker;) If you read the last line in the article, you will see that I recommend external hard drive backups in addition to Carbonite. The advantage of using both is two-fold: One, with an external hard drive backup you get all the benefits you’ve highlighted. Two, with an online backup service like Carbonite, you get the “double backup” but with more security than what you’re currently doing. With two external drives sitting around, you’re asking for trouble (and a lot of work). Use your external hard drive for regular backups and let Carbonite work in the background in the event your lose everything “locally.”

TravisVS
Site Admin

By: NoCarboniteFan

NoCarboniteFan — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:07:07 +0000

I beg to differ here. External hard drives are easy to use (no installations and initial backups needed which I hear could take forever), secure (I’m the only one who has access to my files), and easy to restore (I’ve read somewhere that online backups are a pain when restoring files). Yes, they may quit too so what I do is have double backups of everything.