I signed up to Carbonite two months ago (tip - click on the 'radio users click here' link to get 3 months free instead of the usual 15 days). It's simple to install and I trust what it will back up (much more so than with other software).

I have quite a lot of stuff - around 35GB and my machine is online for about 15-20 hours a week (I don't see the point in keeping it on when I'm not at home and use a laptop the rest of the time, sync'd with the desktop as needed but not a trusted backup because it's easy to nick). I shift files around which is why I wanted an online backup rather than an occasional write to DVD or an external HD, which I also do and keep remotely when I can.

But now the reality ...

After two months Carbonite is still only halfway through its initial backup.

It seems though that Carbonite rapidly backs up small detritus but struggles with large files. This bothers me and should bother you if one of those large files you want to keep safe is your email PST file (I keep all my mail locally). This changes daily and is in constant use ...

Meanwhile today I opened up another Carbonite account to share a large file with a colleague. It's a 500MB video. Now, I expected it to take a while but after 5 hours (384kbps upload on cable) the Carbonite progress says it's not even 1% complete. I don't know if it says that because it only assesses progress based on completed files or if it really is going to be a waste of time.

Good value, but in my case the jury's out on whether it will actually do what I need.