Why Carbonite couldn’t come to my rescue after a hard drive crash
I've preached it over and over on my blog and to my clients. It's not a matter of if your hard drive will fail, it's a matter of when. Well, guess what? Last week those words ran over me like a steam roller.
It all started when I got back into town after a recent trip to Minnesota. My HP diagnostic software that periodically runs checks on all of my system components popped up on my computer screen with a reported failure. Something about the hard drive failing a "short test".
I didn't like the sound of this at all but, at the same time, there wasn't a whole lot I could do to fix the problem. So I acknowledged the reported problem and went about my business. Besides, in the back of my head I knew I ran Carbonite on my computer meaning all my files were safely backed up to the Internet.
Or so I thought.
A short 3 days later, it happened. My computer froze up right in the middle of using it. No big deal, I thought. I'll just reboot. But after watching the Windows logo for 10 minutes and realizing I couldn't hear the familiar crackling noise of my hard drive, I knew I was in big trouble.
Sure enough, my hard drive had crashed. And crashed badly.
First response
My first response was to call Geek in Pink, a local computer repair shop. They told me to run the computer over to them, which I did. A day later they confirmed the death of my hard drive.
So I had them install a brand new hard drive and started preparations to re-install my software and restore my documents from my Carbonite backup.
Only one problem. All of my documents weren't backed up with Carbonite.
My fault, not Carbonite's fault
Now before any of you think this is another bashing session on a technology company, it's not. In fact, I take complete responsibility for the missing data in my backup.
It really boils down to how Carbonite works. Carbonite is designed to back up your documents and digital photos. It is not designed to back up your videos (in fact by default, it won't). This doesn't mean it can't back up your videos. Heck, Carbonite will back up any file you tell it to!
That's the problem. One day, many moons ago, I decided I wanted my entire personal video collection backed up to Carbonite. I'm talking about 20-30 GB of data.
Up isn't nearly as fast as down
Well, guess what? The way Comcast meters my Internet connection for faster downloads, uploading 20-30 GB of video is not a simple task. And when your computer can only upload the video when you are not actively using it, it means it's going to take a long time to complete the task.
And that's where I went wrong. While all my videos were queued up for uploading to Carbonite's backup servers, my onesie twosie Word, Excel and other documents were stuck behind them.
So when the rubber met the road and I needed my onesie twosie documents from my Carbonite backup, they weren't there.
Lessons learned
The immediate lesson I learned from this is to not let Carbonite back up your videos. Although I have to admit, I'm a bit torn by this. I mean I did pay for unlimited storage with Carbonite. Why shouldn't that include my family video collection?
In a perfect world, Carbonite would automatically include my videos but set them as a low priority. In other words, my onesie twosie documents would also get backed up first. And only when those are complete, would it revert to backing up my videos.
But for now, I'll back up my videos by hand and let Carbonite do the rest.
I still managed to get all of my data back
If you've made it this far, you might now be wondering if I ever ended up getting my data back. The answer is yes. 100% in fact.
How did I do it? Well, that's a topic for a follow-up blog post next week.
14 comments for this blog post so far...
May 15, 2011 at 9:48 pm
Jack Klemeyer
Patric
Great post! I lost 4 hard drives on 3 computers from from Dec 1st to Jan 12th… I didn’t have the back-up but I do now! I went with Mozy… So far I’m glad I did too. As you may know, my car was broken into last Friday (the 13 I might add) evening and my MacBook Air along with a bunch of other stuff was taken… Mozy tells me that if the Indianapolis police request ti, they can find my computer as soon as it’s turned on and accesses Mozy for a backup. I have been in touch with them and I can’t believe how good their customer service is. I actually believe they care about me and my MacBook Air.
I’ll never have a crash without a backup of some type! I appreciate your heads up on the settings.
Best of Luck
Jack
May 17, 2011 at 6:12 am
Lorraine Ball
I use Cabonite so now I am going to check and make sure my video is being backed up as well.
May 17, 2011 at 6:47 am
Pat Henninger
I’m actually using Carbonite and Norton Ghost. The theory is that my documents and things that change on a regular basis get backed up to Carbonite on an ongoing basis and Ghost is used every one or two weeks for the whole-drive backup to a Seagate FreeAgent Go external drive. I had an experience very similar to yours and got paranoid. I’m considering adding an extra external drive to the rotation and sending one off-site.
May 17, 2011 at 7:16 am
Eric
Ugh! I’ve heard that problem time & time again with Carbonite - they don’t backup your videos, and they make you think *everything* is backed up.
If you really want everything backed up, look at Backblaze (no configuration necessary) or CrashPlan (lots of configurable options)
May 17, 2011 at 7:57 am
Douglas Karr
Mac + Time Machine. Come to the dark side, my friend!
May 17, 2011 at 9:14 am
Elizabeth Ray
I had Carbonite a few years ago, but when I needed it...NOTHING! I don’t know if they have improved over the years. In my case, once burned is all you get.
May 17, 2011 at 10:51 am
Selfish Mom
Carbonite saved my ass a few years ago when a laptop completely died, unexpectedly. I was able to transfer everything from the online storage to the new computer. Best money I’ve ever spent. Incidentally, I do back up my videos. I leave my computer on overnight periodically to make sure everything is up to date.
May 18, 2011 at 8:23 am
Patric Welch
Jack - that’s really cool about the police potentially locating your laptop through Mozy. Let me know if anything comes of that. Would make for a great blog post!
May 18, 2011 at 8:24 am
Patric Welch
Lorraine - be careful. Backing up my videos is the root cause of why I didn’t have my other files backed up.
May 18, 2011 at 8:29 am
Patric Welch
Pat - I think I am going to start using an imaging program as well. Great idea!
Eric - It’s not that Carbonite won’t back up my videos, it’s that they take precedence over my “normal” files. Will BackBlaze or CrashPlan solve that problem?
Doug - I would love a Mac! Have a spare one lying around? :)
Elizabeth - sorry to hear that. You’re right. With software like Carbonite you just assume it’s working. Part of the reason I ran into my problem listed in this blog post.
Selfish Mom - I never turn my computer off and it still never caught up on my videos. I’m not sure if it is the pure volume of videos or how big they were. I have some videos that are over 1 GB in size!
Carbonite - if you are listening, can someone provide some input on the best way to back up videos so they don’t prevent your other files from getting backed up? And are there any limitations as to the size of the videos you can back up?
May 19, 2011 at 10:26 am
Eric
Hi Patrick,
With CrashPlan, you can create Backup Sets. One can be for videos, the other for everything else. Then, set the priority higher on the “everything else” set, so they’ll backup first, then the videos will backup.
It’s a bit more than a comment can hold, so I took the time and wrote a blog post about Prioritizing Backups with CrashPlan
May 20, 2011 at 9:15 am
Patric Welch
Eric - thanks for the follow-up information. Very detailed info on your blog post. Thanks!
May 24, 2011 at 3:30 pm
Breon
CrashPlan also offers a ‘seed’ service. For $125, they’ll ship you a hard drive, you backup your data to it with CrashPlan, then ship it back. Same thing is true for the reverse. If you need your data quick, you can have it shipped back to you. Here is the pricing options http://j.mp/kpjEd9 (scroll down). The ‘seeding’ details are here http://j.mp/j2aLCK
Cheers,
Breon
http://code42.com
May 25, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Patric Welch
Breon, ok that is cool!
Add A Comment
Need help leaving a comment?
Just fill out your name, email address (for our eyes only) and web site address (if you have one, this is optional) above. Next, type your comment in the comment box. Feel free to use the Enter key to leave spaces between paragraphs.
The last step before submitting your comment is to enter the CAPTCHA word. This is the funny little series of letters and numbers you see below the comment field that helps prevent comment spam and ensures your comment can be seen on the web site immediately after you submit it.
The last step is to click the "Submit Your Comment" button. Thank you for commenting.