{"id":466,"date":"2009-01-01T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2009-01-01T18:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/have-video-files-do-not-buy-carbonite\/"},"modified":"2009-01-01T12:02:24","modified_gmt":"2009-01-01T18:02:24","slug":"have-video-files-do-not-buy-carbonite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2009\/01\/have-video-files-do-not-buy-carbonite\/","title":{"rendered":"Have video files? Do NOT buy Carbonite!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy New Year!<\/p>\n

And apologies for starting 2009 with a negative.<\/p>\n

But this is important: If you have video files on your computer, then do NOT subscribe to Carbonite as your online back-up service.<\/p>\n

Here is the story.<\/p>\n

I shoot a lot of family photos and videos.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere<\/a> on this site I had been recommending two online back-up services: Carbonite and Mozy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today I can recommend only one back-up service: Mozy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I started a paid subscription to Carbonite in January, 2007, to automatically back up a home-entertainment PC, where I store all of my precious photo files and video files of my family.<\/p>\n

When I started my Carbonite subscription nearly two years ago, at least one FAQ on Carbonite’s website said that free-trial users would not<\/em> get automatic back-ups of video files but that paid subscribers would<\/em> get automatic back-ups of video files.<\/p>\n

This wording persisted all the way through my extending my Carbonite subscription on December 28, 2008, for another two years beyond the end of the expiring subscription.<\/p>\n

After I paid Carbonite another $89.95 for the subscription renewal, I discovered to my shock that MANY of my hundreds of video files had NOT been backed up, including video files dating back to 1999!<\/p>\n

I contacted Carbonite, of course, to report this flaw.<\/p>\n

Carbonite initially replied with an auto-responder email message that said video files were not backed up automatically for free-trial users but would be backed up automatically for paid subscribers.<\/p>\n

I will spare you the gory details of the back-and-forth between Carbonite and me.<\/p>\n

My last message from Carbonite essentially said that it was my mistake for buying — in this case, renewing — a Carbonite subscription because Carbonite no longer automatically backs up video files, apparently because Carbonite got complaints from some subscribers that their back-ups and restorations were taking too long, and I should not have gotten (another) subscription if this bothered me.<\/p>\n

In the middle of the back-and-forth with Carbonite, I told Carbonite that it should update its pages and auto-responder to tell users that video files are NOT automatically backed up.<\/p>\n

Carbonite has still not made this extremely clear everywhere in its public communications as of today.<\/p>\n

However, Carbonite has changed at least one FAQ to say now that video files are not automatically backed up (even for paid subscribers).<\/p>\n

Not automatically backing up video files is a FATAL FLAW of Carbonite.<\/p>\n

At least for the moment, I have mirrored drives of my photos and videos.<\/p>\n

But can you imagine the horror of a less-technical Carbonite subscriber who loses a hard drive of vacation and birthday videos — perhaps due to fire, flood, or theft — and then discovers that Carbonite never was backing them up automatically?<\/p>\n

Arrgh!<\/p>\n

Here are my recommendations:<\/strong><\/p>\n