We had a guest from the MidWest last night, a guy who sells computer hardware. He wondered how we backup our operating data here at the Inn. I told him that our needs are pretty modest…we use an external hard drive, and also use Carbonite online backups.
He asked if we knew that Carbonite does not back up videos. I said I didn’t know that, and wasn’t sure I believed it.
So, he said “Go to your computer and double click the “Carbonite Backup Drive” icon on the desktop. Open the “Backed Up Files” folder and look for one of your videos. I went to a DVD folder that contains an old converted home video. Inside were two folders, VIDEO_RM and VIDEO_TS. The TS folder was very small, less than 1 MB.
He said, “Did you tell Carbonite to backup all your videos?” “Yes,” I replied, “months ago I selected the My Videos folder on my computer and selected the Backup option in Carbonite.”
“Now, look at that same VIDEO_TS folder on your hard drive.” I did, and it was 4 GB! Carbonite had backed up the folder, but very little of what was inside it!
This was a big surprise, a very big surprise! I thought everything was safely stored offsite, but it wasn’t.
He said he thinks it’s possible to get Carbonite to back up videos, but that it takes a lot of manual configuring. Neither quick nor intuitive.
I’m not sure where we go from here, I guess I need to send those DVDs to my aunt in New Jersey for safekeeping.