Combining online with local backup

I did some competitor analysis today and found out that one of our major competitors has released a new backup feature which I think is really useful except they have limited it so much that it only makes it half as good as it actually could be.

Without speaking in twists and turns, the competitor is Mozy and the feature is the ability to do a local as well as online backup at the same time.

There is no doubt that having both a local as well as remote backup option is the best backup plan that you can have. In terms of what you put into either is really up to you but obviously the things that will take longest to retrieve and you are most likely to need immediately, you should also keep locally.

The problem I find with this new feature is that the online backup software is the one controlling the backup for you. What this means is that unless you are organised enough to have the hard drive connected all of the time, you are unlikely to get the most out of this option. Maybe it forces you to keep it connected which probably isn’t a bad thing but it can make your desk areas quite messy.

The second issue I found with the feature is that if you delete a file from your local hard drive, not only will it eventually disappear from the online backup (Carbonite does this as well) but it will also be deleted from the external hard drive. ie I can therefore only assume that it is doing a full backup each time (not incremental), replacing the old with the new. Or maybe it is treating your local external drive like the server and managing the files in it for you.

The way Carbonite manages this on the server side is to check if the file is also being kept locally. If it detects that you have deleted it from your hard drive, Carbonite will tag the file and then if it still hasn’t returned to you PC after 30 days it clears it off the server. They essentially do this because Carbonite is an online backup service (and is priced this way) not a storage facility.

So should you delete a file from your hard drive, you will not have it stored online nor will you have it stored on the hard drive. I don’t like this. The other thing is that depending on the amount of data you have on your PC, the backup process could take a while (assuming it is doing a full backup each time). You could also run the risk of the hard drive filling.

Also I wonder what would happen if the hard drive failed. Would Mozy tell you that it wasn’t working?

What I would have preferred to see is that you have the option of deciding which files get backed up online, offline or both and when this occurs. This gives you greater control of where you have your data. It should also be doing some monitoring of the drive. Telling about space consumed and available and checking that it is all working OK.

Maybe these features have already been thought of. Maybe they will get picked up from user feedback. Hopefully Carbonite Inc is also listening and will consider doing something better and more useful for its customers.

All in all, it’s great to see new features coming out, even if they are from competitors. It makes us all want to work harder and deliver more for our customers.