I decided to try out Carbonite for online backup of a desktop PC. The machine has a 160 GB solid state C: drive and a 2 TB traditional hard drive. After 1.5 months, Carbonite is about 74 percent done with the initial backup (about 300 GB total?). The seasonal pace of the backup isn’t a serious problem for me, but the fact that the software has built up a 31 GB log file on the C: drive is. WinDirStat (awesome free software) shows that this single carbonite.log file is now larger than all of Microsoft Windows 7. I spent two hours this morning in chat with Carbonite support (in Lewiston, Maine) and was eventually simply disconnected. I tried another couple of hours on hold with their technical support phone line, but never reached anyone with any technical knowledge.
I’ve tailed out this log file and it doesn’t seem as though it could be useful to a computer program. It has entries such as
1330816462 # 7336:Backup progress: completed 1%, file counts last 1:41:31 A
ll: 42 (490M bytes) Unique: 42 (490M bytes), Compressed: 499M bytes.
1330816462 # 7336:Backup progress: remaining 12 days, file counts All: 1030
722 (174G bytes), Pending: 290 (58G bytes).
1330816476 # 6824:Pending file "K:\AdobeMediaCacheFilesFromCDrive0076.MTS
48000.cfa" (C3463626-S3445-F1214382-G1-V1:V1).
1330816476 # 7224:PutFile: Backed up part 1 of file/folder "K:\AdobeMediaCa
cheFilesFromCDrive0075.MTS 48000_1.cfa" (C3463626-S3445-F1214380-G1-V1, 129 bl
ocks).
1330816476 # 7224:Backed up file "K:\AdobeMediaCacheFilesFromCDrive0075.M
TS 48000_1.cfa" (C3463626-S3445-F1214380-G1-V1:V1), size 8M, sent 10M (126%).
1330816479 # [Activity] 7232:CPU usage: 0% process, 3% system
1330816479 # [Activity] 7232:DISK usage: 366892 bytes/sec process, 644193 b
ytes/sec system
1330816509 # [Activity] 7232:CPU usage: 0% process, 2% system
1330816509 # [Activity] 7232:DISK usage: 139762 bytes/sec process, 37003 by
tes/sec system
1330816512 = 18:15:12
I’m reluctant simply to delete the file, however, because I’m afraid that it might cause Carbonite to start over and throw away 1.5 months of uploading. The software does not seem to have any settings where one can specify that a drive other than C: be used for logging.
Thoughts on this? Or suggestions of an alternative to Carbonite that won’t result in unchecked consumption of C: drive space?
[November 1, 2012 update: After seven months, Carbonite has managed to back up 384 MB of data and still has 88 MB to go. Buried deep within the Carbonite web site, very far from anyone making a purchase decision, is a disclosure that bandwidth is throttled at 100 kbps or 1 GB per day. So while Carbonite technically is “unlimited” in its ability to back up a desktop PC, it will take 2000 days (5.5 years) to back up a standard 2 TB hard drive. A photographer who captures more than 40 digital SLR RAW files per day will never be backed up. A parent who takes more than 8 minutes of HD video from a compact digital camera (AVCHD format) per day will never be backed up. Carbonite never developed a fix for the “creates huge log file on C: drive” problem, though maybe it is by design. If Carbonite itself fills up the C: drive then the user can’t add too many photos and videos!]
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but shipping date is unclear). I immediately took it out in the bright sunshine and tested the autoexposure system in the high-contrast conditions that often resulted in exposure errors of more than two f-stops by the 5D Mark II. The Mark III handled these conditions beautifully.