Carbonite — Online Backup for $5/mo

Finally! I’ve been in the market for a personal electronic, offsite backup for our home files. I can now back-up all my files for $5/mo at Carbonite.

A few weeks ago — well, maybe a month — I signed up to get the official “We’re Live” notice from them. I signed up as soon as I got it. My wife and I have quite a bit of personal data to save and I’d been doing the process manually for months. Backing up to DVD does not give me that warm and fuzzy feeling that an automated system like Carbonite does.

It works in the background like Google Desktop and encrypts the files on my desktop before they travel to Carbonite’s data center. The interface is easy to understand. The first back-up takes a while because its the first time I’ve sent multiple gigs to them. Once the initial back-up is complete, the system takes a daily snapshot and sends any modified files to Carbonite.

(Disclosure: The company I work for offers a business service like this. We could sell it to individuals, but I do not think that we’d make any money at $5/mo. The company bundles other services and SLAs on top of the service so we’re a bit off from $5/mo.)

If you have been spending your time and $5/mo on DVD media, I recommend you try Carbonite.