There has been a lot of discussion on the Virtual Assistant forums I subscribe to about online backups so I watched the posts with great interest. The two that received the most positive votes were Carbonite and Mozy. For ease of use, first-hand testimonials of real hard drive crashes and data file restoration, I felt that Carbonite was the ideal candidate for me. I downloaded the free trial, and was so pleased that I paid for their service before the free trial period ended. Although many VAs have chosen Mozy and feel just as possionate about their services.
Now, all my data files have little colored circles (called dots) that tell me which files have been backed up. A full green dot means the file was updated, yellow means the file backup is pending, a green “donut” means that only selected files in the folder have been backed up, and no dot means the folder is not selected for backup. I do have the choice to turn the dots off to increase the processing speed if needed. I just happen to like the dots! A quick glance at the dots show me what files are backed up and others in various stages of progress. An added bonus for me is I access folders buried deep inside sub-folders frequently and you can follow the yellow dots to the files you have been working on recently. Not really a selling factor, but it works for me! (Follow the yellow dot road!)
Carbonite runs constantly in the background, and I have not noticed any performance issues. You can change the settings to customize your backup times and files if you are having issues with performance or bandwidth speed. I found the help files easy to understand and implement; online tech support is also available. I have been using it over a year and have been very happy with the service. For extra security, I run a weekly local drive backup, to a hard drive I have installed just for that purpose. I once had an External Drive, but I blew it up in a mass electrical destruction of my laptop–but, that’s another story!
Just make sure you are backing up your data, you never know what will happen. Always think positive just remember, some things are out of your control!
