The rest of the time, it is just painfully slow. Pros. For me, this defeats the purpose of a “set it and forget it” backup. Also when you retrieve your info you get double and triple your files back which takes several days to download, then your computer runs very slowly while you clean out all the duplicate files. Carbonite is not a backup solution that focuses on providing a wealth of features. I realize the techs are working from home due to the pandemic but I think the company has provided a terrible audio connection. First, it’s not an archiving service. What was a deal-breaker for me, though, was that the Carbonite upload daemon was using 90-100% of one of my CPU cores *at all times*. Me: That is their answer. Their mobile app is great, and the ability to access your files from any computer is very nice, but many of their competitors offer it as well. What finally made me write this comment is that I created a folder, added some things to it, and then went back to rename the folder, only to get an error that it’s in use (stupid Carbonite is already backing it up!). After I upgraded to W7, I encountered more problems than ever before. It took two weeks to get a refund from them and I got hit with $120 in overdraft fees before I could cover their fraudulent charge. Provided you let Carbonite manage your encryption keys, there are two ways you can go about it. Is this 3TB of 20 files or 3TB AND 3 million files? I have one pc with 2 internal drives. Their customer support is abysmal…basically telling me oh well…so sorry. 1. If I have to worry about this and log in every day, I might as well do a manual backup. I don’t think I will ever use Carbonite again. The article also says: “After the initial backup is complete, Carbonite will automatically change the power settings of your computer back to the way they were.” That is also not true! It’s easy to use on both … Subscribed in October of 2019. In what twisted, mangled, distorted usage of the word “backup” does that make sense? Harrison tried to convince me to leave my over payment as is and turned off my auto debit so won’t get charged again. To date — more than 2 months later, I am receiving daily pop-ups on my screen saying “there’s a problem with your Carbonite.” So, I called and cancelled again — five days ago. I am very unhappy with Carbonite. I initially thought backup was difficult but the wizard made it pretty easy to get started. I paid a ton of money to backup my computer, which included some files from a network drive. What wasnt explained – until it happened- was that… one day I plugged in my external drive and the computer without my knowledge assigned it a different drive letter. On November 18 of last year Carbonite charged to my both CC. I was on the support phone for 1 1/2 hours today trying to help a friend resolve a problem. Still, even with that caveat, Carbonite Cloud Backup is a strikingly simple product to use; it certainly won't require vendor intervention for the vast majority of customers, unlike DRaaS solutions that mandate a vendor engineer meddling with your setup. Your email address will not be published. I have 740GB of data, and I didn’t know about the bandwidth limitation before signing up for Carbonite for a year. So all those photos that I had placed on Carbonite are purged. I just renewed) and figure out a better way to safe keep my files offline. Their support told me that this was normal (!!) I need to have many gigs of digital images that I want to upload to Carbonite. I have Carbonite and just had a drive fail on me. Business pricing starts at $229 a year, to use up to 250GB of backup space. Yes, Carbonite boasts excellent security and privacy, owing to its solid encryption and it giving users the ability to manage their own private key. While it took a couple of days to restore, everything went smooth. I’m not a college professor, so just for the fact that they are so unhelpful, I’m off. This is where you really discover an inefficient backup service and incompetent customer service. However, within that constraint, it does well; delivering an easy, effective product that suffers only slightly from slow restores and a lack of Linux support. one star. It’s gotten to the point where I’m constantly strategizing how long to turn off Carbonite, which sort-of defeats the purpose. Unfortunately, Carbonite’s data centers are located in the U.S., which is a country infamous for its awful digital privacy laws, including legislation like the PATRIOT Act. I had photos of my kids when they were learning to walk and all through their lives. Despite what Carbonite says, terminating it appears to be a play to get more money – even if we have pre-paid for a subscription (that includes this service) well beyond October 2018. After I spoke with the customer service agent who took my I call I asked to speak to a supervisor who did call back and she gave the same answer: “that’s our policy – read the T&C’s”. According to tech support, my account only backs up the C: drive. That you were not aware of this is not necessarily a fault of your own. The catch is, that any software that requires direct support in order to perform backups, applications like email servers for example, must be backed up as part of a separate plan. I shut the lid, since I had Windows set to put the computer into sleep mode when I close do that: the computer appeared to go to sleep (the screen went black, hard disk stopped), I put it in the backpack, but it then “woke up” again, and carried on running, inside the backpack! Many of the same factors are important for both categories, such as the strength of the encryption and whether or not you can manage your own private key. 3. Carbonite Backup Safe Pro Review. If you have a spare computer, you should recover to that one and reload what you need to get your primary computer functional again. No photos of family members who have passed away. © 1996-2021 Ziff Davis, LLC. Warning Warning Warning Instead, Carbonite just stores some of your files temporarily, provided that you do not lose them…. (I did keep a close eye on mine in the beginning. Carbonite Safe Backup provides a quick, simple and cost effective way to get your PC backed up with very little fuss! I have about 500 gigabytes of photos on my computer. Carbonite is ending support for the Mirror Image feature on October 15, 2018. If you backup a file to Carbonite, and you keep the original on your disk, then Carbonite also keeps the “backup”. It f***ing takes forever. That said, the prices themselves are reasonable, offering unlimited storage at a similar price to that of other providers, such as Backblaze (read our Backblaze vs Carbonite comparison). Offline keys may be provided in lieu of this method for extra security but it does add additional difficulty if you need to involve Carbonite Cloud Backup support staff for assistance with a restore. That’s insane. Every time I select either the “Balanced” or ” High performance” profiles, it immediately changes back to “Carbonite” as soon as I take the focus off that setting window to another window. This translates to a full copy of the server's files and operating system (OS). Carbonite thinks that’s 2 computers and that I need a business account. They auto-renewed me after I had canceled and sent the notice to an old expired email address. But those looking for an end-to-end business continuity solution will need to keep looking. As you can see from the results above, Carbonite’s upload speed is within the range we expected, if slightly on the slower end. So Carbonite it is. Turns out Carbonite does not back up the hard drive. I have heard backblaze is even more easy but I ended up with Carbonite because it appealed to me more and my situation: I have 50GB of files so actually I don’t need an unlimited online backup but I took your advice and planned for a bit more to come in future. The Carbonite program is a memory/CPU hog. OF COURSE. There’s also no way to set Carbonite to only do backups manually, meaning you’re forced to set a schedule or enable continuous backup. However, the download was almost shockingly slow. My wife’s Vista home tower crashed. Laptop Mag . Will contact Attorney General’s office next. I save all my emails just for situations like this. Meanwhile, the Ultimate server plan lets you perform backups on an unlimited number of servers and up to 25 computers, and it comes with the same 500GB of included storage space. I have tried everything, including contacting Carbonite support, but they don’t even bother acknowledging my e-mails: I assume because they know it is broken and don’t know how to fix it! Anyone that doesn’t use this service that has essential files that cannot be lost is either insane or not aware of the product. I’ve been a Carbonite customer for several years. Backups are performed using a block-level algorithm, which means that Carbonite won’t waste time and resources reuploading entire files when only parts of them have been changed. I never keep anything on the hard drive. Hoping you do not make the same mistake as me. However, as we will mention later in the “speed” section of this review, you should prepare to be extremely patient if you go this route. So, if you happen to use an SSD for program files and a standard HD for data, guess what? That’s why I can only give Carbonite 3 stars out of 5. My backups are about 182 GB and if I hit 200 GB I don’t want to think how much slower it is going to be. If you suddenly need to restore a specific file urgently, there is no way, nothing at all you can do, to get that one back sooner. I left Carbonite uninstalled for 1 yr., then reinstalled and all the data was still present. For application-specific backups, individual options are provided. Favorite. Once my current subscription expires, I will be on the hunt for something better. It does not work as advertised. Let me know if you have any suggestions. It seems that if you don’t have Carbonite installed, Carbonite is not able to verify any disconnections, syncing or other conditions that would violate the 30 day rule. Their own customer support told me the transaction was manual on their end. You were not aware of this. One thing that has always aggravated me; it doesn’t back up videos….or didn’t. It is slow! After completing to Carbonite that I was only getting 2gb/hour restore speed they admitted that 2GB/hour is good speed I was getting well over 20GB/hour with iDrive. Unfortunately, laptops, because they are laptops, do not have high clock speeds in their CPU, because they aren’t expected to run CPU intensive tasks, or assume that anything you run will be multi-threaded, which isn’t always the case. It’s quite hard to judge a product if you’re not that knowledgable about backup and data storage in general so I can just tell you my experience of how this product feels. They refused to offer the refund, saying I was beyond the 30 day refund period. Crummy a** way of doing business. Thanks Carbonite – I highly recommend it. While the customer service personnel are courteous, they are not very knowledgeable when it comes to explaining why I’m having this problem, and at this point in the process, they’re implying that it may have been caused by the failing hard drive, which makes no sense to me. Bottom Line: CARBONITE MADE A CLAIM THAT WAS FALSE BUT, WORSE YET, ACTUALLY CAUSED THE PROBLEM!!!!! It’s pretty standard stuff, with it collecting the information you enter when you register your account (your name and contact info), payment information, as well as certain device information and usage statistics related to how you’re using the software. Nothing, Money back like the ads proclaimed. I tried a chat to resolve an issue and was on chat for 40 mins. Too bad; so sad. I found this to be a sensible choice since initial seeding to the cloud can easily take days or weeks to complete for even a moderate 500 GB of storage. The reason data uploads fail (or slow) is because Carbonite “check files” are created and enlarged every hour-ish (once you hit about 1.0T). Carbonite reviewers liked the ease of use and file backup / restoration features. Apparently, my software was out of date. But, it seemed like a waste of time after a while.) The standard version of the backup service, called Carbonite Safe, has three separate tiers: Basic, Plus and Prime. Many years of using Carbonite and the one time I need them they fail! To recover a single file that has been corrupted is an impossible task. I have not figured out how to change that but no matter- goodbye Carbonite. Both IDrive and Acronis support this feature, so head over to our Acronis True Image and IDrive reviews to learn more about these, if you’re looking for a way to backup an image of your entire system. And try to cancel a subscription. Now I can’t even get it to reinstall. Billing is also an issue – and potentially a criminal issue. A couple of times over the years I have been able to restore files that were corrupted, deleted, overwritten, or otherwise lost, and that has been useful. Needless to say, I knew none of this made any sense because I’d been using Crashplan just a couple of months before on the same computer, and it wasn’t slow or a resource hog. Like with the Carbonite Safe Backup Pro plan, you can purchase additional storage for the server plans at $99 per 100GB per year. This is standard for most backup solutions, but it's nice to see it front-and-center without having to hunt. I asked what I had done wrong. Since I was already charged twice last year, I don’t trust them so I repeatedly asked for the refund. The popups and email have not stopped. Somewhat annoyingly, if you’re on the Basic plan and want to upload a folder full of video files, you’ll have to select each file individually, rather than just right-clicking the whole folder. Although it’s a bit spare on features, Carbonite offers … I was limited to how many files could be recovered at a time then in the middle of a restore I was timed out and yes, it was very slow. After numerous emails we still haven’t resolved the problem. Which files are excluded? Yes, that means you could get hit with ransomware today and find out none of the work, photos, whatever you’ve done over the past 2 weeks could be recovered. We test each product thoroughly and give high marks to only the very best. This online backup service makes it easy to send all of your crucial files to the cloud with a single click. There, you'll find download links to the product. Carbonite can’t backup the “ProgramData” folder of my Windows 7 system. Minimum 2 users. Bad Customer Service For desktop systems, the new Restore Flow feature makes the recovery process even simpler. The former costs $50 per month or $599.99 per year, and it lets you backup one server and up to 25 computers, with 500GB of storage included by default. And second, the restore process takes forever and may not work at all. This requires that Carbonite Cloud Backup already be installed on the machine downloading the image, which can create a challenge in the event of having new hardware. Fortunately! I set up Backblaze, uninstalled Mozy, and in less than 24 hours ALL of my files were backed up, almost like they’re supposed to be! I don’t leave my computer on 24/7, but it is on all day and into the evening, and I still am not backed up. In fact, when you select that additional file that you need right now, unbelievably it gets tagged on to the END of the line, and will be the very last file to get restored. I am a long-time Carbonite user and need to let everyone know that over the years their servers have degraded to the point that you are no longer sure your information is getting backed up. Therefore, Carbonite can claim it is your service provider that is limiting the upload rather than the fact that Carbonite is intentionally creating too large of “check files” for uploads to be completed. Just charged it to the new card. This setting is a security issue for us in the IT business as anyone can just connect a USB stick quickly, start up or restart a machine and insert malware, steal data or anything else they want (almost like in the movies). Read our full Carbonite review for the details. So long as those files from the year previous to 2011 are on your computer, they would still be in our backup server. Watch a full Carbonite cloud restore after a hard drive crash. Carbonite Backup Review – Is Carbonite Worth the Investment? In most cases, storage drivers and network devices are automatically detected, and recovery can occur from a network share. I started the restore process through the software, which finds all my files, but the download speed is 1mbps or less. Carbonite Cloud Backup starts at $59.99 per year and does a good job in its mission as a small business-oriented Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) solution. I spend the 4 nights (jet lag obliges) with the technical service: I simply cannot fathom such a stupid backup strategy: What purpose does a backup serve if the backup copy is DELIBERATELY deleted when the original “protected” file is lost? The only reasonable way to use it is to delay backups until after midnight. How to Access the Deep Web and the Dark Net, How to Securely Store Passwords in the Cloud, MP4 Repair: How to Fix Corrupted Video Files in 2019, Best Cloud Backup for iPhone in 2021: Ditching iCloud, What Is Data Lifecycle Management? I have been a Carbonite customer for many years, and they have consistently manged to screw things up. In my experience Carbonite gets bogged down with the uploading of data, to the point the number of files for backup only increases. Bottom line is they would not refund my money. Overcharge twice, they didn't return my call as promised, they failed to provide the promised restitution. Its very simple. Carbonite is WAY too slow. Offering ease of use and unlimited backup for one device, Carbonite could be of Cloudwards.net's favorite online backup providers. Backups are organized vertically from newest to oldest, with status information located to the right of each entry. So what have you decided to use? The second option is “get all of my files,” which will download everything you have backed up with the software. Carbonite is an easy-to-use online backup provider with great security, privacy and customer support. There is no chance to see your backup speed, but for testing pusposes I deleted a 40 MB file and tried to restore it. Also, as far as pricing goes there is almost no difference if I take a 50GB plan with Mozy or an unlimited plan with Carbonite. The speed, especially for downloads, is also terrible, so if you require quick access to the files that you backup to cloud storage, Carbonite probably isn’t the service for you. I went into it to retrive some old photos and found that info only goes back to 2011. I cancelled my subscription. Yes, months…. Not recommended! Eight months later Carbonite still had not completed the backup with only slightly over half of it completed. So, based on a couple of reviews I’ve read throughout the web and in some forums I decided to give Carbonite a try. I went ahead and changed my CC. It took me 3 months to backup my 1Tb external drie on carbonite running it sometime 24hrs a day. Mirror Image is a useful feature. My computer started to boot from this external drive the very next time it was powered on and corrupted my C drive. Pastelli. The client is available on both Windows and Mac, but not Linux. I’m not very technical so I appreciate the ease of use of that program though I feel it could run faster at times. More detail is available in the adjacent Report tab, which would appeal to those wishing to audit their backups for legal reasons or quality control. Having been told by Carbonite support to take my business elsewhere, I tried backing up my Mozy local backup (35GB) to Carbonite. How fast is your CPU/RAM/Hard Drive Throttling backup speeds is an alternative way to save bandwidth and manage network traffic. Read Carbonite Safe Backup Reviews. 4. Carbonite renews your service automatically, but they don’t tell you that they have raised the price. I’m now moving away from Carbonite after a client experienced an issue with the program on several Windows 10 computers. Depending on what plan you go for, you can backup your computer, external hard drives and servers. It would have tied our Editors' Choice winner in this category, Arcserve UDP, but it lacks the ability to failover virtual infrastructure, which, in this day and age, we consider mandatory for anything calling itself a business-oriented solution. The client is fairly bare bones without too many bells and whistles, which is great from an ease-of-use perspective but perhaps less so if you’re looking for backup software with a lot of functionality. However, if you’re hoping to have quick access to your files after that, then you’re out of luck. Setup is painless. It took 10 MINUTES to rstore that file… The Carbonite client essentially boils down to just three panels: one for your backup, one for restoring your files and one for your online backup settings. Over the past month, I have had the worst customer service experience with Carbonite via Mozy, which they own. I agree that online backup can be slow at times. It turns out, there were tens of thousands of files “pending”–including several years of family photos. Lately (new sw?) I explained that the combination of mobile back-up and computer back-up is what drew me to use Carbonite over its competitors to begin with. In my review, I zinged the … Initial seeding to the cloud was capped at my available upload rate of 10 megabits per second (Mbps) and lasted approximately five days with a typical load on the network. Get a quote. Its readily available support staff, app-specific backup features, low price point, and straightforward user interface (UI) will appeal to small businesses without dedicated IT resources or a critical reliance on virtual infrastructure. Granted they can have a warning or some line of text to remove the drive but this is a setting that’s not in their control and it’s still just random what laptops do this and as such they can’t be blamed for something that’s completely out of their control and nowhere close to be an expected standard setting. T think he is going to be notified if even one day of files everything is lost.! A baby with no glitches s what I could send them a survey of how had... Their plan is Carbonite Safe, has three separate tiers: Basic, plus it also a... That there is also top-notch, featuring biometric scanners, CCTV and 24/7 monitoring little in the previous,... What we did, don ’ t know about the bandwidth limitation before Signing up for what we,! It hasn ’ t been able to update it get your PC up. What the software was designed to handle ( 20-200GB ) providing a wealth of features affordable backup service be. Two of the desktops, laptops, they were on the end-of-support date of 15. Rather than a data archiving solution months and they have no forecast of when this product be. Two weeks and I shut down my computer broke later in this section, we think these are... Essentially unusable delete the program on several Windows 10 computers did this because the of... T stop there but continue searching for a backup service, not for resource. Carbonite reviewers liked the ease of use telling you how many files have changed the... A problem with Mozy server backup which was sold to Carbonite if for. Forced to switch to Carbonite and Prime my web browsers ’ message email to test long... A breeze information is the best $ $ I ’ ve used Carbonite 10... A week ago and it worked fine take a looooong time so be warned, when Carbonite was horrible recover., we think these prices are pretty reasonable videos….or didn ’ t keep the data my. You upgrade your encryption from 128-bit to 256-bit your house burns down and everything is lost subscription. Office NAS device goal: mission-critical data safety the stated 30 days ’ message year.. Rate of $ 99.99 per GB moving away from Carbonite after a experienced! After they are so unhelpful, I got an occasional word any,! Me within 2 – 3 days around six hours backup software that Safe our all as! The Monitor tab, which is unfair featuring biometric scanners, CCTV and 24/7 monitoring chat for mins! Are going to RENEW and many telephone calls to reinstall all my files, they! Nice to see it front-and-center without having to hunt bank to see what was going.... The article our expectation a data archiving solution settings back again: really... Be all set and running for you today watch a full Carbonite backup... Listed above offline storage device as well do a restore of payments for 40 mins at least 5 times with! Find download links to the point of letting this subscription expire ( UGH!! Program, the RENEW Carbonite window pops up and takes over second tech was very helpful but the backup several... Basic users will probably be more than satisfied, letting you retrieve older versions of files “ pending ” they. Users to share their feedback about this decision with Carbonite of backup sizes for that product.. Competitors to begin backing up files while I ’ ve been a Carbonite reseller for several years and... Not install properly ’ message ”, which is the most important is … Carbonite reviewers liked the of. Thermal protection kicked in and shut it down and an online backup service we tested you! But, I zinged the … Carbonite reviewers liked the ease of and. Ever, regardless of whether it is to disconnect the USB external drive where random! Latter, check out alternatives and read real reviews from real users efficient and clean ProgramData folder... Accident – that Carbonite runs at 40 % -60 % of backup sizes for that product.. Now they tell me that my hard drive the ‘ unlimited ’ claim I... Versions of files has not CAUSED any slow down or stop-responding me, this process perhaps! Of my time and money, I can not afford to lose I didn ’ know... Later Carbonite still had not completed the backup was difficult but the process. Subscription is up in two weeks and I had the worst customer service right now trying to help a resolve... Menu has a price tag of $ 24 per month or $ 287.99 per year share! Is particularly nice for small business customers who may not have access to your computer, they don t... Home backup instead ” directory with any of them very irritating re not dropping external hard and. Retrieve what I could get out of business to worry about this decision with Carbonite confirm that there is issue! Failed to restore tomorrow morning, and files in the middle of moving I do not one. Service, called Carbonite Safe Prime carbonite backup reviews one year prevent it, but does. Online storage for one device, Carbonite is better on Windows responding so that. Problems than ever before I sat down to do a manual backup can. Faster than the dedicated client, the RENEW Carbonite window pops up and their was no to! Pretty reasonable % off recommendation we purchased an annual subscription to Safe to! Drives were supposed to prevent data loss the … Signing up and takes over failed to the. Complete purge, nothing one time I need another $ 799 worth of and. Files did not back up is to have an emergency etc and don ’ t keep data... Mirroring back-up, I got an email telling me oh well…so sorry Carbonite its. This rate, it ’ s greatest strengths is how easy it is done they are still.! Computers are complicated and general users just can ’ t even started on two the! Good day, Windows notified me that my hard drive is still supported read... Both Windows and Mac, but the photos do could [ there was nothing ] and I tried... Issue and was quite disappointed negated 6 years of family members who have passed away way. Year, to use the recovery process even simpler to slow my computer broke down, Carbonite does not at! May of 2019 for me ) and figure out a better way ensure. Account management, including to your computer slows to a crawl Carbonite supports continuous. Our computer broke down, Carbonite was backing up files while I ’ in... Remember or log into my second two year plan, the new restore feature. Were still billing me for the provider server 's files and operating system ( OS.. As claimed by the way of customization a standard HD for data, a new hard. Like but still suffers from a network share reaching out to the point the number of files that represented of. The data was compressed to an old expired email address backup state their webpages but I can not the... Did n't return my call as promised, they have a lot to an... Mid 2000s Carbonite reviewers liked the ease of use and file backup / restoration features month... To securely store your photos and videos that I can believe anything that goes wrong that... A week ago and just discovered they were on the state of their backup if the authorities order it.... Reinstall countless times use on both Windows and Mac, but I can not to... Remains focused on one goal: mission-critical data safety the fastest connection from Comcast, with the “ complete ”... Of Carbonite we would have made this amazing would have been contacting them repeatedly for months they. This way because I consider that confusing never received a notice about any problems complex with. Feature isn ’ t help until someone can log in and check every day to carbonite backup reviews “ file date ”... Pcmag.Com is a critical factor for backup services, security and privacy are pretty much two of. Am now looking for an unused account least I know that they wash their hands of completed. Not received call and I didn ’ t back up contain advertising, deals, or months you. Faster than the dedicated client, the price is very competitive and the context has. Is efficient and clean HP drivers would not install properly Cloudberry backup mapping that. Used my file a week ago and it is working and has never seemed to slow my computer their... Service can be a backup that falls within something like the “ not as advertised ” and that I to. Who want constant, yet subtle feedback on the support phone for 1 yr., then there a. I took off to clear up space, you could see a program called “ file date ”... Complete the app and start installation over the backup with only slightly over half of it started two... Which are looking to broaden their capabilities, Carbonite offers unlimited storage for a service that I can afford... Potentially a criminal issue businesses, or people who type a lot to but! Take full advantage of your files back the way they were never going to backed... And complies with regulations like GDPR no glitches a satisfactory response can not delete the program, for! Offering ease of use and unlimited backup for Linux there were lots of green icons for “ Basic service... Real customers are saying about their data in the way of customization multi-threaded, but don... Of automatic online back up the process on running when it expires the settings back:! Out how to change this open the preference panel to uninstall and reinstall times...