Carbonite Backup - a Review

Evaluate Carbonite online backup using these guidelines.

Disclaimer: Carbonite Backup is not sold by Zirius, or do we sell any online backup by itself. We do however sell Online Managed Backup.

Note:
This review does not cover Carbonite Pro.

This page covers::

When do we recommend Carbonite backup?
Summary of Carbonite online backup performance and targeted customers?
What does Carbonite do well?
Carbonite issues you should know about?
Carbonite conclusions

I admit it.
I am an IT guy who uses Carbonite Backup at home. (Shhhh. Don't spread it around.)

It's inexpensive. It works ok for my needs to back up photos and music files. The limitations that bother a business user (and enable it to be so inexpensive) do not affect me on this computer.

Carbonite is a decent service at a great price if you can accept its limitations. Those limitations, which allow it to be so cheap, can create problems for businesses. Most home users will find Carbonite a vast improvement over backup that is not an online service.

Over the past few years we have used, sold, serviced, and/or tested twelve different online backup services for our small business clients. We have researched even more.

This article will help you evaluate if Carbonite (or a different online backup) would meet your needs.

When do we recommend Carbonite Backup to our customers? All of

We don't. Our clients are businesses. We even own
Carbonite licenses from years ago that we never offered for sale.

What's Carbonite missing for businesses?

We think the big issues are these, but there are more lited below if you read down. The shortcomings listed below are handled differently in good, business-class backup services.

How far back does the backup go?
30 days, but without versioning (see next line) it is not so good.

Versioning
Versioning means to keep multiple versions of the same file for a set time. Carbonite does not keep versions, so only the most recent file is preserved. This can mean a lot of trouble. For esxample, if you get a virus that infects your files, thereby changing the files, Carbonite will only have the most recent, infected version of the files.

Backup for them. (I.E. redundany)
Bsuiness class backup servcies have a data center that holds your data, and another cata center copying that data center in case something goes wrong. Like an earthquake, or a flood. Or just it hardwarr problems.

Carbonite has only one data center. it costs less that way. But Carbonite has lost customer's data. They blamed a hardware problem. They blamed the company that sold them the hardware. maybe so, but they need a backup data center. That's the real problem.

Slow to perform
Can be excrusiatingly slow at downloading and restoring data. Can take days. Running backups becomes slow when you have a lot of data

Slows down your computer
This happens when just running a backup, but it especially can affect computers more than three years old.

Freezes your access
Carbonie freezes access to files (Word files, QuickBooks, etc.) when backing them up, and this can happen throughout the day in the default mode of running backups "continuously". Inconvenient to say the least.

Support
Carbonite provides support by phone, chat, and by remote connection to your desktop if needed, but the technicians are very basic. Our experience is of asking a clear qestion several times, and thinking they are answering it, but theyreally don't understand, don't ask for clarification, and draw us into lots of time wasted.

Honesty about "unlimited backup"
We think they are not honest claiming to offer unlimited backup. Carbonite backup is not unlimited. Repeated reports say they limit it to 100 GB. That is still a lot of data to back up, but please be honest.

Summary of Carbonite online backup performance and targeted customers:

Target Market
Carbonite seems to target the consumer and home office marketplace. It is safe to say it is not intended for a more demanding business user. It has made a splash by offering "unlimited" backup for an amazing price ($54.95/yr).

Features
Carbonite backup does not include some features considered important in a business environmen, and that some home users don't want to be without. These features include ability to get your data restored quickly, access to support and its ability to run on a machine without slowing it down or interfering with your ability to work.

As with all online backup, the first backup takes a while (and this can be days or several weeks), but afterwards each backup usually only takes 15 to 30 minutes.

Warts
Ssometimes the service does not work well for some environments. Read below for details.

What Carbonite Backup does well:

A quick list:

Very, very low cost. Ridiculously low. (Only Mozy Free is less expensive, and covers only up to 2 GB.
Runs 1 to 3 times per day, automatically.
Backs up without you thinking about it.
(But not always. See below.)
Great, easy instructions.

Nice use of voice introduction.
Nice set of video tutorials
(You can see some of the tutorials here.)
Superb use of little messages to explain what it going on in your first backup. Here is an example:

"Hang in there!"It's normal for your first backup to take several days. When the lock icon in your system tray turns green, you are all backed up. (Then, updates to your backup will take just a few minutes per day.)

Will back up files up to a maximum size of 4 gigabytes. This is pretty big. (Carbonite Pro, just released and not yet reviewed, uses a maximum file size of 10 GB.)

Supports both Mac (which we have not tested) and Windows.

Supports MacIntosh computers. This is the trend for all online backup services today.

Very easy to select files for backup. There is no program window for selecting files to backup. Instead, you right click on files or folders in Windows Explorer (i.e. the folder tree). Once you learn this, it is an easy and simple system. Very nice.

Automatically backs up Outlook (unless you choose to select the files for backup yourself. )

(Note - this is an EASY file to miss because of the way Microsoft buried in deep in many folders. See here.)
Automatically backs up your "My Documents" and many settings (unless you turn this of). Not unusual. If you don't use the My Documents folder, or just let it collect junk, you can un-select it.
.
Offers a lot of backup.
Carbonite says "unlimited", but it actually is limited, and they have been accused of false advertising in this. Carbonite limits it to being an undefined amount more than the average account uses. More info here. Still, they offer a lot of backup for not much money. Seems you just have to stay under 100 GB 100 GB.
You can get your files when you are at another computer.
This is GREAT, but not unique. Stilll, a lot of value for the money.

More about Carbonite issues you should know about:

What does "unlimited" backup mean?
Carbonite advertises the backup as covering "unlimited" data on your hard drive. It is not. You are limited by their formula. It seems safe to count on it backing up 100 GB, which is still a lot. Carbonite denies the limit, but reports of people expoeriencing reduced speed of backups and limits to the service continue. For more info see here and here. You can also google "Carbonite not unlimited".

Other limits:

The maximum file size it will back up is 4GB. (This would be an enormous file.)
The maximum you can transfer (combined backups and restores) is 100 GB per month. Peope who back up large amounts of music and photos may run against this limit, which seems to be part of the limit calculation described in the above paragraph.

The computer slows down during online backup.

This is two issues. There is a big difference between Carbonite and some of the other backup services (which cost more) in this area.

The first issue is that Carbonite uses a lot of the "resources" on your computer - mostly memory and CPU. This makes your computer run slowly or not respond when a backup is running. This is really bad only in the first couple of minutes of a backup, but continues somewhat for the duration of the backup (about 20 minutes on my computer).

The memory used by Carbonite on my computer is about 150 MB for the following proceses:

CarboniteService.exe - 64 to 85 MB;
CarboniteUI.exe - 79 MB

The second issue is that Carbonite locks your files during each backup so that you sometimes cannot save or open files.

This can happen two to three times daily, since Carbonite backs up your data that often (unless you set it otherwise. See a few lines below.)

When this happens, Windows just tells you that you might be out of disk space, which sends you on completely the wrong direction.

Or Windows says "There is not enough free memory to run this program. Quit one or more programs and then try again."

This can interferes with your work flow. Businesses tend to not tolorate computer programs that make you stop your work while they do their work.

Even if you click on the Carbonite "Lock Box" in the system tray (the simple and easy point from which you control Carbonite) and select "Pause Carbonite" or "Disable Carbonite", you cannot get this freeze to thaw and return your computer to normal operation - until Carbonite finishes its backup.

Sometimes on my XP computer, even when Carbonite finishes, this does not return to normal. Rebooting fixes the problem, and I am not certain that Carbonite is the only culprit. It might be that Carbonite only does this when it is installed on a computer with a particular other program. But it happened to me, and this is not a level of inconvenience you need to tolorate if it is a problem for you. there are other backup programs that work fine in these ways.

One of our people wrote this about Carbonite:

"Sometimes this really bugs me. Suddenly nothing happens when I click. If I am trying to open a file I am refused with a cryptic message. If I am saving, a message appears that says my disk is full and I cannot save.

Ah! It is just that Carbonite is starting up a backup again.

Because Carbonite comes preset to run multiple times per day, these issues can occur multiple times daily. Or you can choose settings to avoid the interruption.

I have set the preferences for Carbonite to run only once daily. Some folks set it to run at night, with the computer running all night, but since I like to work green, I want it to run during my work time. I set it to run when I usually take lunch.

The security and safety of the data storage.

Carbonite uses only one location to store your data. The best use two.
Carbonite lost customer data a couple of years ago, and got a ton of bad press. They blame Promise, a hardware vendor and are suing them. (Google "Carbonite data loss" for more on it.) Again, this looks like a case of trying to run a lower cost service. Although I expect that with the bad press, they have been sensitized to the issue, it seems like the risk that they will allow this to happen again is pretty slight.

Keep in mind, however, they do not say that they keep your data in dual locations. There is just one, and one earthquake could possibly kill it. Few backup providers actually use redundant data centers. Iron Mountain is the only one we know.
Note: it is rare for an online backup company to give a guarantee that you will get your data back. (Only Iron Mountain LiveVault Backup for Servers does this, and at $6 and up per gigabyte, it is too expensive for many. But they document that every recovery of data has been successfull - millions of them - and they track the number.)

The speed of the backup

The backup speed just is not very fast when you gain a lot of data.This is often not critical for small businesses. As long as the data all gets transmitted over the internet, even if it takes weeks, that is acceptable. It can really take this long if you have tens or a hundred gigabits or more. Less expensive backups tend to back it up slower.
HOWEVER - You cannot make Carbonite run a backup immediately. Let's say you have just completed a big project and saved it to disk on your laptop. You want to run a backup before you start lugging your laptop around. Carbonite will allow you to choose "Run a backuip ASAP", but that could take some hours. You would have to move on with your laptop and not have that file backed up on Carbonite.

Problems with restoring data

Not quick:
This is where the rubber hits the road.
When you need to restore data, you usually want it QUICK. Right away. Pronto pronto.

Fast is usually critical for a business. You don't want to wait 10 hours to get back a file that is critical to doing work that day. I have heard of this happening with Carbonite, which I chalk up to the low price. their servers can get busy, I imagine.

If speed of data recovery might be important to you, avoid the very low cost "consumer" level backups that are out there. Check the service agreement you accept when you install the free trial. Carbonite is the "low cost leader".

Sometimes restoring data is blocked on my pc.

If I click on "View Files to Restore" or " Select Files to Restore" while a backup is running or Carbonite is getting ready, searching for files to back up, nothing happens. I cannot run a backup. Nothing tells me to wait until Carbonite is finished running a backup. And I have to just wait the 20 minutes or so until Carbonite is finished running a backup to do the restore. I have not found a way to turn it off.

How far back does the backup go?
Carbonite gives you "30 days of backup" instead of saving a set number of versions of each file. Perhaps this is enough for you.
For more info on what this means, see our summary of online backup features here.

The availability of support

Carbonite isupport is slow and by email only.
They can be slow in responding (several hours to more than a day, in my experience.) The support page on their web site states no commitment to getting back to you within any period of time, but jsut invites you to send an email.

Price

Price is Carbonite's big drawing card. $54.95 is a great price, but it means that the backup tool has some limits.

How is Online Managed Backup different?

It is online backup that is monitored and sometimes managed by another party for an increased price. There are big differences in what level of service actually is delivered by the other parties.

This way, you know you have a backup even if your computer, your software, your employeees, or who knows what goes wrong. You don't have to pay attention to it yourself, in case you are busy or you have a business in which relying on someone to do this is unpredictable and costs labor.

Zirius offers Online Managed Backup. We do not sell Online Backup by itself except to our larger network clients.

Carbonite Conclusion

A good value for the price, if you can live with the warts - that is our conclusion.

Carbonite does a very nice job of making it easy to use, and they offer the lowest price that I know for backing up more than a gigabyte. And they will back up a hundred.

But you also get what you pay for. If the limitations of Carbonite are acceptable to you, great. Use it. But if they look like a problem, consider that paying an extra $20 per month ($240/year) might be a small price for backup that works smoothly for the business.

Also keep in mind that if someone needs to spend time managing a backup like Carbonite - opening it, checking that it ran - that can easily cost you several times the $240/year additiional for a more business-compatible backup.

If you need this kind of reliability, and don't have the time to spend watching it yourself, we recommend online managed backup to keep the cost down.

To see it yourself, visit the website for Carbonite Backup.