Don’t get fooled by those other guys

This morning I was enjoying my breakfast while leafing through the ads from the Sunday paper when something caught my eye. It was an ad from a major electronics reseller promoting a backup service for $69.99 (normally $99.99). What actually caught my eye was the fine print that read Maximum of 9.4GB of data, additional charges for larger sizes. Client must provide the medium to back up or transfer data, including CD, DVD, NAS, internal or external hard drive or another PC.

That fine print reminded me of the reason I started Noobie. I kept thinking of all of the noobies out there who are going to get taken by this ad. First by the price. Then by the fine print. Let’s start with price.

Let’s assume you think this is a good offer and you call this squad of people to request the backup service, presumably because you want your personal documents, digital pictures, videos, etc. backed up in case your computer ever crashes beyond recovery. So you lay down $70 (or $100 if you aren’t aware of the special) and schedule the service call. When they show up they start by asking you what medium you want to back up to. This is the point where you probably say “ummmm… I don’t know.” Next, they ask you what data you want backed up. When you reply “the entire computer” they will tell you that that amount of data most likely exceeds 9.4GB and there will be an extra charge for that.

Moving on, the technician finally gets through the backup after taking more money from your wallet and then leaves, letting you know that your computer is safely backed up if anything bad were to happen.

Now what?

What if your computer crashes in three months? Would you know how to restore the backup medium back to your PC? What about the three months of data you’ve accumulated since the backup was originally done?

This is why I started Noobie. Noobies don’t need things done for them. They need to learn how to do them (I’ll spare you the teach a man to fish reference).

Several weeks ago, I wrote about an online backup service called Carbonite. In my opinion, this is a much better backup solution and I’m ready to prove it. Let’s start with the $5/month price tag. For $50/year (there’s a $10/year discount when you buy 12 months at once), you get near real-time backups that you never have to think about. Carbonite prides themselves on their “Sit back and relax. Carbonite is working…” slogan. Already you are $20-50 cheaper than making a service call. Assuming you would have made that other service call once per year, you are already saving $20-50 per year.

More importantly. With Carbonite there is no asking what medium you want to back up to. Your data is backed up automatically to the Internet. Not to mention it’s encrypted which prevents anyone from reading the data if they were to ever get their hands on it. Not true with your CD or DVD backups from those other guys. Furthermore, Carbonite recognizes new files on your computer and immediately flags them for backup. The next time you walk away from your computer, Carbonite kicks in in the background and does its magic. And forget about extra charges for large backups. There is no limit to the size of your backup with Carbonite.

Now I know I sound like I am really pushing Carbonite as the only solution. It’s not. There are several others out there that are very similar. I’m really trying to make a point. Noobie was formed to educate noobies about situations just like these so they can make informed decisions on their own. If you want more information on Noobie, please visit our web site at http://www.noobie.com/.