yeah, carbonite.. if you somehow don't have a file on your computer for a month they delete it from your backup and it's gone forever... probably to be really sure one needs ARCHIVAL backup where it keeps all files, and you want one copy onsite and one copy offsite...
lots of good options suggested here! personally, I have been doing the external USB HDD backup AND mozy for 3 or 4 years now - and I have had to restore from Mozy once. It went fine, if I remember correctly I have had some back and forth discussions with their customer support via Email during that restore process but the bottom line was that I was able to fully restore. IMO if u have important data, you really should have an onsite AND offsite (mirrored) backup. Odysseus
Beware, this product may appear to work but in my experience falls far short of realistic expectations. I have this on two Windows 7 computers and they both have the same issues. The initial backup went smoothly if a little slowly. After a while, I double checked to make sure that my critical files had been recently backed up after being changed. Although some had, a lot of them had not. I contacted Carbonite but their answer was pretty useless. All they say is that your backup is proceeding normally. Apparently they are unable to tell you what was backed up in the last 24 hours for example. All they can tell you is that since a particular date a long time ago, so many bytes of data have been backed up. Useless! The log file which is accessible on each system is almost unreadable but with some perseverance, I found that it was trying to back up huge files recorded from the DigiTV card and loads of other unimportant stuff. I then went through the whole computer and explicitly told it not to back up any of that stuff, only leaving the critical files and folders for it to back up. It still doesn't work properly. Files are left in the 'pending backup' state for months until I tell them to be backed up ASAP. I have fed this specific information back to Carbonite and they are not replying. So the message is clear. If you want the comfort of the illusion of this kind of backup, Carbonite is for you. Just don't expect your recent data to be there when you system dies. At best, it's about as much useful as doing a complete system copy every few months. If you think your Carbonite installation is ok then check out the backup status of a file that you know you changed a couple of weeks ago. Besides the fact that it doesn't work, what is desperately needed is another icon in the Carbonite drive window that shows what was backed up recently. If this information was available, it would have been a lot easier to spot that things were horribly wrong. In principle, this is a great idea. Now all they have to do is to make it work.
I haven't used Carbonite yet but I can attest to the good performance of Mozy. The system has good standards and the service is reasonably priced. I don't think I'll be shifting to another provider any time soon.
I like using Mozy for non financial stuff like personal pictures. For important information, i use a backup drive and move it offsite.
I've had to do multiple reformating of my computer and therefore, reinstalls with Carbonite. After a few reinstalls, I noticed that the problems that made me redo my computer only cropped up after a complete reinstall from Carbonite. So now, I only reinstall my pictures and a few word files that I need and my computer stays ok. Contacting Carbonite was irritating, they didn't read my full e-mail. My Carbonite account is chock full of repetitive copies of my computer as each time my computer seems to rename itself differently and a complete reinstall gets several copies of it all. What a mess. Now, I reinstalled an important file, only to find no recent copies of it. All of my work from June, July is not there. The only files are dated in Feb 2010 even though I know I downloaded one from May that had data from April. I'm checking for other options now. Carbonite is great until you really need it.