Carbonite Review
- Features
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- Likes
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- Dislikes
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- User Reviews
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- Where to Buy
Editor’s Rating:
Avg. User Rating:
| Overall |   |
| Ease of Use |  |
| Features | |
| Value for Money | |
| Customer Service | |
Carbonite Review Summary
Pros
- Unlimited storage space for only $59/year
- Carbonite Business starting at $229/yr unlimited computers
- Free Trial with no credit card required
- Ease of use. Simple and automatic
- quick, flawless ability to recover and keep on going after an internet connection interuption
- online chat and phone support during normal business hours
- NEW – mirror image backup
- NEW – external drive support
- NEW – courier recovery service
Cons
- Yearly plans only, no month to month billing available
- Certain file types omitted by default
- To get priority phone support additional $19.95/yr
Bottomline
Carbonite is again a traditional Online Backup service provider just like Mozy, and along with Mozy are probably the two best known and well established online backup providers in the market today. Going with an established market leader always has its benefits and Carbonite provides unlimited backup for a flat yearly rate, with a 15 day free trial with no credit card required.
Carbonite Features/Benefits
Carbonite Inc., a Boston, MA, USA company that makes computer data backup and recovery services available to consumers and small businesses, launched its Online PCBackup™ service in May 2006. Carbonite’s industry-first offer of unlimited backup space for a flat low price revolutionized the market for consumer and small business backup services. The company’s mission is to provide an affordable, reliable, secure and easy-to-use solution for the mainstream computer user.
| Pricing Home: | Home: $59 per computer HomePlus: $99 per computer HomePremier: $149 per computer |
| Pricing Business: | 250GB: $229/yr 500GB: $599/yr includes all computers |
| Storage Space: | unlimited |
| Free Trial: | Try Carbonite For 15 Days For Free no credit card needed |
| Type of Backup: | The system is designed to back up all your files automatically in the background when your PC is idle, however you can schedule regular backup times if you prefer. |
| File Sharing: | No – Carbonite is a traditional online backup solution. They do not provide file sharing abilities. If you are looking for more of an online storage provider with true file sharing abilities then we suggest you look at SugarSync. |
| File Version History: | Yes – Carbonite will keep up to 90 days of previous versions of your files. |
| Support for Mapped Drives: | No – Carbonite does provide backup support for mapped/networked drives. |
| Support for External Drives: | Yes – You have to purchase the HomePremier plan and you can backup one external hard drive. |
| Individual File Size Limits: | 4GB by default by you can override manually |
| How Long are Deleted Files Kept: | 30 days |
| Customer Service: | Customer support with Live support chat for both PC and Mac users. Live chat is available weekdays 6:00 a.m. – 11:00 p.m. EST and weekends 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST. Carbonite also offers priority phone support for just $19.95 per year. This gives you unlimited access to Customer Support representatives by telephone during normal business hours, and provides coverage for all computers associated with the primary email address on your account. Representatives are available weekdays 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. EST, and weekends 12:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. EST. |
| Refund Policy: | Carbonite’s refund policy reads: "By purchasing a license, you acknowledge that you are aware of the opportunity to -"try before you buy" – by using a free or evaluation Carbonite Product or Service. Carbonite does not offer any refunds for purchases of Carbonite Products or Services." So be sure to utilize the free trial. |
| More Info: | Make Sure to Compare Online Backup Services for Additional Plan Statistics |
Likes
Low price for unlimited storage space: For the low price of $59/ year, you get a simple and safe backup service with unlimited backup and storage of your precious files, making it very affordable.
Remote access function: This allows access to your archive from any PC that has an internet connection and a web browser, even if the Carbonite client software is not installed. According to the company, users simply log on to carbonite’s website and choose the ‘remote access’ option. This allows them to download any of the files from their back-up securely. Remote File Access is not intended to be a complete restore option, but instead you should look at this as an option for those times that you are away from your computer but need to access to one or a few files. It is the quickest way to get those urgent files without transferring your Carbonite subscription to another PC. The software uses a password tied to the users email account to gain access to the Carbonite data centre, but is keyed to the PCs serial number in case a user loses their password. Where-as a license transfer is required prior to doing a true restore of data to a different computer.
Ease of use: It is easy to set-up and use. The installation is fast and simple and the backup process is easy to follow. Even when Carbonite is hard at work, it uses very little processing power and memory. Carbonite works automatically in the background to keep your backup up-to-date without interfering with your computer’s performance. However, if you need to update your backup right away, you can select ‘Back up ASAP’ on the View Status tab. When you select Back up ASAP, any new and changed files will be uploaded to your backup immediately. (Note that this option is only available after your initial backup is complete.)
Security: Files are encrypted before leaving your computer and are stored encrypted on Carbonite’s secured servers, completely safeguarding them from unauthorized access.
Peace of Mind. With Carbonite, you know for sure that data you’ve lost can be recovered. And the files you care about are protected from theft, fire, flood, and other natural disasters. And because Carbonite is always on, continually detecting new data and changes to existing files on your computer, you never have to worry.
NEW Support for External Drives: With Carbonite’s new HomePlus or HomePremier plans you can now backup files and folders from one external hard drive.
NEW Mirror Image Backup: Also with Carbonite’s new HomePlus or HomePremier plans you have the ability to backup your files to an external hard drive(you have to furnish the hard drive, of course). This gives you double the security knowing that you have both a locally stored version, as well as your off-site backup, should you need either. The mirror image backup will backup your operating system files, programs, and all of your user files. The local backup can be a huge benefit if you need to do a full restore – saving you vast amounts of time, over going to the cloud to get every file. The mirror image backup will backup your operating system files, programs, and all of your user files.
NEW Courier Recovery Service: If you purchase Carbonite’s HomePremier Plan you will now have the option of having your files put on a drive and shipped to you. Anyone with large amounts of data will find that this is an extremely useful option to have. Again, it will drastically reduce your restore time.
Dislikes
Potential extended wait times with Customer Support. Many customers have complained about long wait times when trying to contact the standard customer support. To combat this, Carbonite offers a “priority support” option for $19.95/year, which gives you expedited access to telephone representatives. Now what happens when everyone signs up for the “priority support”?
Files only kept for limited time. Carbonite keeps a deleted file in your backup for 30 days from the time of deletion or, if you are a trial customer, until 15 days after your trial has expired; whichever is shorter.
No professional version available. Carbonite does not yet have a version of their service specifically aimed at the business enterprise customers with centralized administration, proxy support and other features that a business may need, as compared to its competitors.
Selection of some backup files done manually. Carbonite does not automatically backup executable files, system files, temporary files or individual files greater than 4GB. During your free trial, audio (such as MP3s and iTunes music) and video files are not backed up by default. When you pay for your subscription, one important thing to remember is that Carbonite’s automatic backup function will only work for documents, photos, music files, email, and settings. Videos, programs files, and large individual files need to be selected for backup manually. After completing this, they are automatically backed up from that point forward. Some users have complained that they lost valuable files such as videos and music after their computers crashed because they assumed they were being backed up when in fact they were not. So, make sure you are aware of this!
Some program compatibility issues. Certain programs are known to interfere with the operation of Carbonite such as Kaspersky Internet Security v7.0, CyberSieve 2.4.1, CyberSieve 2.6 CitiVan, MBNA ShopSafe and Discover Deskshop (created by Orbiscom). Carbonite has announced that they are working with the makers of these software products to resolve the compatibility issues.
Where to Buy
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Try Carbonite Home For 15 Days Free!
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Try Carbonite Business For 30 Days Free!
Summary
All in all we find that Carbonite is one of the easiest, safest and most reliable online backup services that is available today. It places a lot of emphasis on ease of use and security and offers an affordable unlimited version with unlimited storage space. Just be patient with its initial backup and be aware that you may have to select a few files manually to start with, and you will be more than happy with Carbonite’s service.
The trial period leads you to believe that Carbonite moves along quite nicely, but once you pass about 35 GB, the backup bandwidth allocation slows to 50 kbps which could translate to months for the initial backup for a big drive. I have only 140 GB, no videos, no music, but I do have photos from vacations and of family. I also have some 20 years of files. But 140GB is not big by modern standards. I clocked the rate of file transfer – it was generally at 50 kbps. That is glacially slow, taking weeks to backup my drive. I decided to pay for an upgrade that would allow for 2 mbps – slow, but acceptable. However, nothing speeded up. I contacted support that initially denied that upgrades increased speed so I had to forward them their own posted policy, They apologized and said that all I had to do was re-install the software.
What was amazing to me is that in this competitive market they would throttle bandwidth to ridiculously low levels. What was also amazing, where bad support often sinks internet businesses and good support makes internet businesses billionaires, their support consists of hastily posted packaged responses that show little attention to the messages sent. Re-posts do eventually get a response. Chat was better than e-mail.
For a few hundred dollars, you can by your own NAS backup drive – they’re easy to set up, but you do have to maintain them and if they sit the same house as your desktop, it’s sort of silly. Also, universal access requires portforwarding and keeping purchasing a static IP – in fact, I wound eventually getting my own domain name. It seemed so much easier to just use the cloud and pay for the service.
However, Carbonite isn’t the place to go. They are inexpensive, however, which is their primary appeal, and they do have a good software package. But there is no reason, when the world is skyping and streaming and watching vidoes over the web, to put up with transfer rates that are in the dark ages.
Let the buyer beware, of course – but do look out for bandwidth policies. It hardly matters if a good service is slow. The initial backup should always be speedy and then they can throttle bandwidth – after all, it isn’t fair if someone is backing up multiple terrabytes of video files and wrecking the back up of others – but the initial backup should be done and over with pronto. It will be a month before Carbonite backed up 140 GB. Fortunatley, my NAS system is still in place.
I’m looking for another service. Oh yes, they do not provide any kind of refunds no matter what – that’s okay – airlines and phone companies do the same thing – but they are stooping to the lower standard of customer care.
I thought I had a wonderful backup solution until I needed to recover one file. I recovered one of 5 versions and substituted the corrupted file with the recovered version. It was corrupted as well so I wanted to recover the next older file version. But then all versions had been deleted! Support couldn’t help… I just lost 1 year of email
So I am now looking for a new service provider that can deliver backup and online access/Android support.
I thought I loved Carbonite but today I discovered that NONE of my video files have been backed up. It turns out Carbonite does not backup video files unless you manually designate each video file for backup. My video files are extremely valuable to me. I have a lot of them. Many are mixed in with my pictures in my My Pictures folder. The whole My Pictures folder is of course marked to be continuously backed up. But, it turns out none of the videos in My Pictures is backed up. And none of the videos in My Videos is backed up either, even though that folder is also marked for continuous automatic backup. When was I ever notified of this? I have been living in a fool’s paradise, thinking my videos were all safely backed up on Carbonite. They must have changed their policy after I signed up (I signed up years ago). I’m furious. I am cancelling and moving to another service. I’m still doing research, but it looks like CrashPlan is the way to go for me.
The true measure of a backup is not just how reliable the backups are but how it functions when a restore is needed. Carbonite fails in these categories.
My main system developed problems around xmas. While I was able to use a local backup of my files, Carbonite proved worthless when moving to a new system.
My new system had a differently named user folder. Carbionite would not let me change the name of the user folder they had backed up and was not intelligent enough to realize that the user folder with the new name contained all the same files as the one that was backed up. In the end, I had to totally delete the backup Carbonite had and start from scratch.
After spending a week backing up the files again, Carbonite appeared to work properly. I routinely check to see what the state of my backup is. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the majority of the files I had just backed up had been deleted.
They were tagged to be backed up again, but the backup kept failing day after day. Carbonite’s solution is to uninstall and reinstall the software which did not take care of the problem. I was able to delete files but no more files would updload. There support simply wasn’t unless you think uninstalling and reinstalling the software three, four, five or more times is a viable fix.
On top of this, Carbonite kept tagging files and folder I specifically unselected for backup.
There appears to be a reason why they only offer yearly contracts. Much like cell phone companies, once you pay, you are locked in.
Look for a more reliable company and software.
I really liked Carbonite, but they recently introduced a bandwidth limitation on backup larger than 200GB, this is very bad for me and the backup service became really useless, I have 22GB waiting to be backedup since 3 weeks… Two years ago I bought the three year subscription, now I must look for a different online backup service and lose 1 year subscription
First..I had a free/trail for a year…Great…but!!! if your computer is down for a month (vacantion) they just dump all your files….an you can start over uploaden 100 gb ;-(
After that I bougth it for 1 year.
Great, everthing automatic, no more one month inactive problem
Maybe slow..but..safety first so ..ok woth me
BUT AFTER 200GB… mailing your files character by character…will be even faster!
So if you have lest than 200GB..it is ok but if you have more….dont
A review marked as overall 2 stars…..i consider that as a NEGATIVE review