Carbonite- opinions please

[cpnuser]

I'm considering signing up with carbonite www.carbonite.com Any pros or cons would be appreciated. I don't have lots of real, real important items on my computer, but mostly info on sites, email address book, saved items for future reference, etc. I thought the cheapest carbonite($59. a year + 3 extra months) sounded like a good deal. TIA!

 

[timeos2]

I've found all the web based backups like this to be too slow to be useful. I use a free cloud service like box.com or google, amazon to store my data in a remote location. It is only the irreplaceable things like music, pictures & data files that you need to protect as programs can be easily restored. Why pay for a slow backup?

PS - Look into an external usb based hard drive like the Seagate that comes with backup software for your primary backup. They are under $200 for 3 terabytes of storage & easy to automate. You do NEED a backup and this plus the free services can do a great job of it.

 

[BoaterMike]

I use Idrive http://www.idrive.com/. They have a plan with 150GB for 49.95 per year. They have a good interface for file management and daily incremental backups are pretty quick.

As a believer in redundancy, for frequently accessed files I also have a 50GB Box.com account and use Google drive quite often to move files between pcs and devices. Additionally I have two external hard drives for archiving music, photos, etc. But, the online back up is a good safety net for me. You don't have to think about it. It just happens every morning.

Mike

 

[Ken555]

I suggest considering BackBlaze for online backup (unlimited storage is only about $50/year). I also second the opinion re local backup...I consider that essential. I recommend online backup for redundancy and in case of extreme situations (theft, fire, earthquake, etc).

 

[Pedro]

I started using Carbonite a little over a year ago and I'm very happy with it. I had tried 2 or 3 different backup providers, and they were too slow and somewhat cumbersome to use. I have a little over 100 GB backed up and it keeps the backup current all day. I had so much data to back up that it took about one week to complete when I first started using the service.

 

[gpurtz]

I use carbonite and am happy, especially after I used it following the loss/erasure of all my office files (still not sure how I managed to do that...talent I guess). I do use a local back-up, but not as diligently as I should...hence my use of carbonite.

 

[kashicaat]

I like it

I've used Carbonite for about 6 months and have no complaints! I've had one computer die and Carbonite saved my butt because it was during my school year.

I've had to use customer service once and they were helpful and retrieved a file I couldn't find (my own error).

It's not the fastest backup system, but its effective and it's fast enough for me.

 

[channimal]

I tried a few online services and they seemed way too slow. 2 black Friday's ago I bought a 1tb backup at Target for like $49.00 that came with the b/up software built in. Small, portable and plug and play.

 

["Roger"]

I've used Carbonite for a year and a half. Call me stupid, but outside of the initial backup (that does take forever) I don't even know what the comments about slowness refer to. Once it is set up, it operates in the background and I am not even aware of its existence. (The one minor exception is that if I am gone over a week and have not used the computer, I get an email alerting me to the fact that there has been no activity on their computers. I think this is more for the people who choose to manually backup their files, telling them that they have not done so for a while.)

If you have an IPhone, an ITouch, or an IPad, there is a free app that lets you view (but not change) your files from those devices. (I've used it maybe twice to view a picture that I did not already have saved on my ITouch.)

I realize that there are other similar services, but I am a happy camper with Carbonite..

 

[Talent312]

Check out Pogoplug PC at http://download.cnet.com/Pogoplug-PC/3000-18500_4-75685328.html?tag=dropDownForm;productListing;pop

5 GB of hosted online storage . It's free to try, $30.00 to buy.

 

[nightnurse613]

We've been using Carbonite for several years. Was useful when we transitioned from one computer to another. Like others said, I don't know what this talk about slow is; I never know whether it's working or not!! Be sure to pick up the 15 day free trial PLUS the two months free from the Kim Komando web site!! :whoopie:

 

[Clemson Fan]

Carbonite is awesome! I've been using it for 5-6 years now and it's saved my butt a few times. It works seemlessly and quietly in the background.

 

[JackieD]

I've used Carbonite for about a 1 1/2 years. I am no computer pro but I do know that I had to put Carbonite's service to the test since my laptop crashed last year and I used the backup to restore everything to my new computer. Yes, it took forever (like 2 days) because I have thousands and thousands of pictures but it was worth it. I have purchased external hard drives and programs and I just never remember to backup .

 

[Ken555]

I've used Carbonite for about a 1 1/2 years. I am no computer pro but I do know that I had to put Carbonite's service to the test since my laptop crashed last year and I used the backup to restore everything to my new computer. Yes, it took forever (like 2 days) because I have thousands and thousands of pictures but it was worth it. I have purchased external hard drives and programs and I just never remember to backup .

Automated backups...

 

[isisdave]

I use SugarSync and love it, and it has saved my hide a few times. You can get a 5Gb account for free, or 30Gb for $50 a year.

What is different about SugarSync is that the fee is per userid, not per computer. I have the "important stuff" from six computers backed up, and it's hardly 10Gb (no pictures or music, just documents). Besides computers, it will back up Ipads, Ipods, Androids, and Kindle Fire.

As with most, you can access it from anywhere, share files or folders with anyone, and it has a super-convenient "Magic Briefcase" which appears on all your computers' desktops. Whatever you put in there is automatically synced to all your other devices.

If anyone wants to try the free plan, or buy a paid plan, please PM me or use the link above; we'll both get free additional storage.

 

[AKE]

I've used Carbonite for a year and a half. Call me stupid, but outside of the initial backup (that does take forever) I don't even know what the comments about slowness refer to. Once it is set up, it operates in the background and I am not even aware of its existence. (The one minor exception is that if I am gone over a week and have not used the computer, I get an email alerting me to the fact that there has been no activity on their computers. I think this is more for the people who choose to manually backup their files, telling them that they have not done so for a while.)

I realize that there are other similar services, but I am a happy camper with Carbonite..

I also vote for Carbonite. Yes the initial backup is slow (but other ones that I tried prior to Carbonite were even slower) but once it is backed up it is instantaneous. The main advantage of offiste storage is that no matter what happens, your data is safe AND the backups are automatic and instantaneous as well as retrievable from anywhere.

 

[caribbeansun]

Be careful!!!

I have used Carbonite for about 5 years and had a 100% hard drive failure about a month ago.

There were numerous critical files that Carbonite did not backup apparently mistaking them for program files or other files that it won't back up such as zipped files or executable files. Certain programs do compressed backups of the data files and Carbonite ignores these due to the compression.

For reasons I can't determine Carbonite did backup some of these files and did not backup others with the same file extensions. When you are dealing with tens of thousands of files it's all but impossible to visually scan each one to determine if they are in fact backed up.

Fortunately I had a redundant backup to a USB drive. It also failed on a number of counts as due to user error I had mistakenly deleted a couple of files from the backup and did not realize my mistake.

In my case what failed in Carbonite did work on the USB and what didn't work on the USB did work on Carbonite - that was very fortunate in that I lost approximately 1% of my data and nothing critical.

Restoring from Carbonite was a royal pain in the butt and not something you will ever want to do. Having said that an off-site copy of files is definitely a better backup strategy than not just be aware that as slow as uploading your data is restoring it is just as painfully slow. Speed during work hours was at a crawl, speed overnight was good as was early in the morning and later in the evening. Overall I'd classify the speed as horrible and if I'd had to restore more than the 100GB I did I think I would have lost it. It took me over 2 weeks to restore my data which I consider to be unacceptable.

Be aware that should you rename your directories - I do this frequently with photos as they import with the date being the directory name, I change it to include a couple key words of what that day's shots were about ie. a city name, person's name, etc. Carbonite stored not only the original version but the renamed version as well - made for a very confusing directory structure in Carbonite and meant I had to restore pretty much one or two directories at a time. Doing a full restore wasn't an option as it would have dumped a lot of useless data back into my system.

It also caused some minor panic in that the files came back into my system without the proper "ownership" for Win7 so I was denied access to almost all the files initially until I figured out what the heck was happening.

Because of the errors I encountered with Carbonite I will NOT continue to use it, I am looking for an alternative cloud storage arrangement even if it costs more since the point is to have your data safe without finding after the fact that it's like Swiss cheese.

If all you are backing up are excel, word and photographs then you likely won't encounter some of the issues I have, if your data includes anything out of the norm you are very much at risk of at least a partial failure when you attempt to restore.

Be forewarned of the shortcomings and good luck in your decision.

 

[JeffW]

I'm assuming Carbonite does incremental backiups. I wonder if one option periodically have it do a full backup. Granted it might (seemingly) take forever, but at the end, at least you'll have a complete refresh of your current disk image.

Jeff

 

[Pedro]

I'm currently using Carbonite Home Plus. I carry a lot of data in my laptop, which happens to be my main computer as well. You have to be careful to select which files/folders are backed up automatically, otherwise Carbonite will not back them up. For instance, they will not back up movies, executable files, DLLs, and others unless you specifically select them.

The problem with having to reload tens of GB of data in case of computer failure is that it can take several days or weeks, depending on the data rate. I have the option where you can have a 'Mirror Image' of your whole computer copied into an external hard drive. That mirror image copies everything from your computer including all system files. That way, if your computer's hard drive were to crash, you can just reload everything from the external drive and be up and running in hours rather than days or weeks. The mirror image is updated everytime I have the laptop connected to the external HD, and is completely transparent and does not slow the computer down. In all honesty, I have not had to use it to recover data (knock on wood) but I hope if the need arises, all my data will be there.

 

[Ken555]

Some of the online backup services have an optional recovery service where you pay them to send you your data on an external hard drive. While this might seem expensive to you (I've seen quotes around $200, depending on the amount of data) it will save you significant time during the recovery process. Online backup performance is obviously influenced significantly by your home Internet connection, it's speed, etc. Also, some of the business backup services actually have better compression and encryption software which improves performance, but are much more expensive than the consumer offerings out there like backblaze, carbonite, crashplan, mozy, etc.

 

[caribbeansun]

Not really an option - I suppose you could delete your entire backup and start over every so often but I don't see that as a practical or advisable approach to using this particular software.

I'm assuming Carbonite does incremental backiups. I wonder if one option periodically have it do a full backup. Granted it might (seemingly) take forever, but at the end, at least you'll have a complete refresh of your current disk image.

Jeff

 

[AKE]

If all you are backing up are excel, word and photographs then you likely won't encounter some of the issues I have, if your data includes anything out of the norm you are very much at risk of at least a partial failure when you attempt to restore.

Be forewarned of the shortcomings and good luck in your decision.

In my opinion Carbonite is for the casual user (pictures, word files etc) and as such should be used accordingly. If I was running a business or storing critical data then I would look at a number of packages before choosing the best fit for me (and Carbonite could be this one). There is an option in Carbonite wherein you can indicate which files (and i think directories as well) you want to back up as not all file name suffixes are standard and as such, may not be backed up.

 

[pianodinosaur]

I do not use Carbonite. I have several friends who had used Carbonite in the past and switched to a different company this year. I think the main reason for the switch was how Carbonite treated Rush Limbaugh over the Flukes incident. Carbonite lost a great deal of stock value after that incident and has been trying, unsuccessfully so far, to advertise with Rush again.

 

[Ken555]

I do not use Carbonite. I have several friends who had used Carbonite in the past and switched to a different company this year. I think the main reason for the switch was how Carbonite treated Rush Limbaugh over the Flukes incident. Carbonite lost a great deal of stock value after that incident and has been trying, unsuccessfully so far, to advertise with Rush again.

Some might say this is a good reason to choose Carbonite over the competition.

 

[AKE]

Who cares about Rush or anyone else? I use a product because it is good value for the money and meets my requirements... I would never do otherwise.