"It just felt like there was always risk," says Sandy Black. "I'd go to reformat someone's machine, and I braced myself for them to tell me they hadn't backed up their stuff in a while."

As a broker in the four-person office of California-based Lesron Insurance Agency, Black is in charge of IT support and data storage administration. In the past, she would dutifully back up files on the company's tape drives, but began to get frustrated at the long backup times and potential for data loss.

Trouble with Tape

Although the tape drives did store information, they were cumbersome to use and didn't save data in a format that
was easily recoverable. Also, not everyone in the company remembered to back up their data regularly, despite the reminders.

When backups started taking longer than usual, Black really began to worry. If data got corrupted, she thought, the office would have to find paper-based documents and re-scan them into electronic format — assuming they still had the files in their mostly paperless office.

Finding a Better Solution

Black started researching alternatives to tape drives and ended up finding the necessary insight right at home. Her husband
is an IT consultant, and he told her that he'd used Carbonite
at a recent client engagement.

"He emphasized how easy it was to recover data, and that struck me because with tape drives, getting data back is not fun," she says. "The data isn't saved in a format that's easily transferable, and the whole process takes a long time. It's a big, fat nightmare."

Streamlined Operations

After spending some time doing an initial backup with Carbonite, Black now finds the backup procedure effortless.
"I was used to backup being such a pain, and Carbonite made
it so super easy that I couldn't believe it," she says.

Here are some of her favorite features:

• The automatic backup:

  She felt a tremendous relief when this responsibility no longer fell on her employees. With Carbonite, it all happens automatically in the background.

• Carbonite sends an alert if a machine hasn't been backed up in a few days

  Usually, this reminder is related to an employee who might be out sick or on vacation and hasn't turned the computer on during that time.

• Straightforward setup and operation:

  Black believes that even someone without much computer experience could be up and running quickly with the product.

• Having off-site backup is a plus.

  Because the tape drives were at its office, Lesron would have suffered if there had been fire or other facilities damage.

"We all feel more secure now," says Black. "We don't worry about losing data, and in our business, that type of assurance means a lot."