Carbonite,
a provider of online backup solutions for consumers and small to medium-size
businesses, unveiled its suite of Carbonite Home solutions. The suite brings
more backup options to users with the introduction of the HomePlus and
HomePremier, which complement the company’s current Home solution.
The
suite of Home solutions is available with annual pricing of $59 (Home), $99
(HomePlus) and $149 (HomePremier).
HomePlus
and HomePremier plans include external hard drive backup, allowing users to add
files and folders saved on an external drive to their online backup. The
HomePremier plan also comes with the option to have a backup recovery drive
shipped to a user. For users with large backups, the Courier Recovery option
may be the fastest way to get files back should they need to recover all their
data or do not have Internet connectivity to perform a standard recovery. Plus,
with remote access, users can get to their backed-up files from any Web browser
or from a smartphone.
“Carbonite
is committed to providing backup solutions that enable our customers to easily
back up what they want to protect. We’re happy to introduce these new service
options to our Home and Home Office users so they can choose the backup plan
that best meets their needs,” said David Friend, chairman and CEO of Carbonite.
“With HomePlus and HomePremier, Carbonite is addressing our customers’ interest
in backing up their external hard drives, and is also introducing an innovative
hybrid backup option that provides an even-greater level of protection by
combining our cloud-based data backup with a local ‘bare metal’ backup.”
HomePlus
and HomePremier users have an extra layer of protection with a local copy of
their computer’s hard drive. With Mirror Image, Carbonite users have the ability
to back up the operating system and software programs to an external hard
drive. By combining this “bare metal” backup with their cloud backup, a user
will have the reliability of physically separate and redundant data backups. If
a user’s hard drive crashes, Mirror Image can be used to restore the entire
disk, including the Windows operating system, all applications and settings.
“Carbonite
pioneered simple, secure online backup, and now we are making comprehensive
full-system backup just as easy and accessible for our customers. With the new
Mirror Image feature, our customers can now back up their data files to the
cloud and have a bare metal backup on a local hard drive. This creates a
complete copy of everything on a user’s PC, so if their hard drive crashes or
has to be reformatted, the PC can easily be restored to exactly the way it was
before,” Friend said. “Bare metal backup used to require advanced computer
skills, but now our users only need to plug in an external hard drive and let
Carbonite do the rest.”
Cloud Computing 
