Mozy vs. Carbonite vs. SugarSync vs... others?

duds

Hi everyone.

Just looking for thoughts/opinions about online file-backup services like Mozy, Carbonite, SugarSync, etc.

Anyone have strong feelings? Would love to hear about it.

Thanks!

Andy

Backblaze is da bomb.

denisegoldberg

You might want to look through this thread - http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=146355. There is quite a bit of discussion about the different services.

--- Denise

duds

Thanks Denise. Somehow I missed that thread when I searched...

Andy, an endorsement from you is a big deal. Any complaints?

Andy

duds wrote:

Thanks Denise. Somehow I missed that thread when I searched...

Andy, an endorsement from you is a big deal. Any complaints?

None. It installs in a jiffy, it backs up in the background and no issues since I started many months ago. I really like it. Oh and the visual interface is dead=simple easy to retrieve stuff if you need to.

duds

Thanks again. I think I'll probably decide between Backblaze and Carbonite.

My only concern with Backblaze involves the inability (?) to hand select which folders to backup. Seems odd to disallow that, but their website seems pretty clear that their philosophy is "we back up everything".

Their support for backing up external hard drives sounds pretty good. Any experience with that?

Thanks, Andy. I value your opinion, and appreciate your feedback. I hope you get a cut of my $5 per month.

Dan7312

I've talked to Backblaze about that and they said they are not going to change that anytime soon. In the end that's why I stopped using it, it just didn't work for me.

They feel very strongly that if you have to be selective about folders you don't have enough bandwidth to use their service.

With Mozy/Carbonite be sure you are comfortable with how they handle removable drives.

duds wrote:

My only concern with Backblaze involves the inability (?) to hand select which folders to backup. Seems odd to disallow that, but their website seems pretty clear that their philosophy is "we back up everything".

Andy

duds wrote:

. I hope you get a cut of my $5 per month.

I don't... I just like the service

mercphoto

duds wrote:

My only concern with Backblaze involves the inability (?) to hand select which folders to backup. Seems odd to disallow that, but their website seems pretty clear that their philosophy is "we back up everything".

Their support for backing up external hard drives sounds pretty good. Any experience with that?

Actually that part is what concerns me. Will Backblaze attempt to backup my Time Machine external drive as well? I love Time Machine, but I'm also wanting an off-site backup, but not interested in backing up the local backup.

Dan7312

Unlike just about all the other backup services, Backblaze requires you to exclude what you don't want backed up rather than include what you do want backed up.

Excluding a drive in Backblaze is easy to do. Things get tedious is if you want to exclude folders... every new folder you add (if you haven't excluded its parent) is a backed up until you specifically exclude it.

The user interface for excluding stuff is very tedious to use, as each time you visit it you can exclude only one thing... that is you can't select a multiple folders to exclude.

mercphoto wrote:

Actually that part is what concerns me. Will Backblaze attempt to backup my Time Machine external drive as well? I love Time Machine, but I'm also wanting an off-site backup, but not interested in backing up the local backup.

Dan7312

BTW the support people at Backblaze are really competent and nice to deal with... sort of like SmugMug in that respect. Check with them directly before deciding not to use them. If it were not for my weird requirements I would be using them in a heartbeat.

mercphoto

Dan7312 wrote:

Excluding a drive in Backblaze is easy to do.

Sounds like it would be easy to exclude my Time Machine drive, which is cool.

duds

Just want to say that I'm really impressed with Backblaze. Y'all were right - it's easy to use, inconspicuous, and inexpensive... a real winner. Maybe not the right solution for everyone, but it does what it says it does, I believe.

Thanks! :ivar