Carbonite Backup
Just a quick entry here to mention a very nice backup tool called Carbonite. Unfortunately, it currently only runs on Windows XP, but if you run XP it is very handy. It runs in your system tray and lets you back up anything on your hard drive to their storage servers using your high-speed internet connection.
I'm a bit of a backup junkie because I've been through the pain of losing all your data (or music or whatever) and it really, really sucks. Bad. I run backups to an external hard drive, but this wouldn't save me in the event of a fire or burglary. Carbonite encrypts everything and stores it off site, and they give you unlimited space. The best part is, it's only $50 a year. That is $4 month for unlimited, secure, offsite backups of your critical data. Which is a really good deal in my humble opinion. Anyone out there tried Carbonite? What do you think of it? And in general, do you run backups? If so, what is your approach?
They certainly can be useful, with some limitations. Beyond what's been shared above, more discussion (pros, cons, alternatives) is at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_backup
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Managed_backup_servic...
Hey, btw, I see your captcha only asks for 3 letters. That's nice. I see you're using 5.1+ of BlogCFC. I'm still on 5.0 and its implementation of captcha asks for several latters. Is that something you tweaked or perhaps just a built-in change? I've reviewed the blogcfc site and readme and don't see any mention. Though I'm considering updating my BlogCFC to a later build, if this was a manual tweak I'd like to consider doing the same until then. :-)
I found an answer to your question, about why setting it to 2 sometimes shows 3. Indeed, right now I'm seeing only 1 in your captcha. :-) As he explains in his docs, this setting is an "average" and will be sometimes 1 more or 1 less than what you set. That explains things. :-)
As for the use of alphaUcase, I see there is an alphLcase which I will use instead. I don't want people to think they *have* to use upper case. :-)
I'm working on putting it on all the machines in the house.
http://www.nickstarr.com/2006/06/29/carbonite-when...
A agree that the 2GB is pretty skimpy with Mozy for wholesale backups. I saw you can get 60GB for about $10 a month, which is good for the space, I think, but I've kind of been looking into the whole online backup thing the past couple of days, and I'm starting to think pretty seriously about backing up everything, not just the crits (which I'm doing with Mozy). We're talking about iTunes, pictures, some programs, possibly past the Carbonite threshhold. Who else lets you back up a ton of stuff for pretty cheap?
Though, I am on a laptop, so most of my data is on a USB drive, which they do not support yet. Their tech rep said sometime by end of year.
And if there is a way to download files to a different computer than the one you uploaded it from I haven't been able to find it. But what it does it does well.
Well, 20 days later I have had a disaster occur. I lost a data file with over 15 years of financial data on it.
I emailed carbonite to share the catastrophe and their canned response was "sorry, your 15 days has passed". Honestly, I can't believe a "Backup" company doesn't use the 15 days as a general policy with the understanding they will keep information somewhat longer.
Any idea how I an get in touch with a Sr. Engineer with the company to get a "technical" answer.
However, I don't see how you would expect them to keep your data beyond the free trial period if you don't actually sign up. That's the point of the trial. I'd agree it would have been very nice of them if they had, but to expect them to do this is probably assuming too much.
I'm sorry that you had a system failure and that we didn't have your data anymore. Let me explain why we purge unpaid user accounts. As you know we offer a 15-day trial and do not require a credit card for the trial. So we get a lot of tire-kickers who chose not to purchase the product: fine, no problem, that's why we offer the trial. But there's an opportunity cost for us associated with storage. We want to give users a chance to come back to us and purchase after an expired trial and we don't want to delete their data if they were away from their PCs for a couple of days, etc. But at some point we need to clear that space for other users. We could have chose 30, 60, 90 days. But the greater the number, the higher the cost to us. And we are committed to being the lowest-cost provider of backup.
I see there are a lot of questions about Carbonite on Brian's blog (someone else pointed this out to me this morning). I'm traveling most of today but will be back to address others' concerns as best I can tonight or later this week. -Swami Kumaresan (VP, Product Marketing - Carbonite)
I've had USB thumbdrives go blank just pulling them out of the computer -- apparently there's a tiny battery holding the capacitors charged that can be zapped unless you first click the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the tray and close the thumbdrive.
So what really constitutes "safe"?
Michael Heavener, heavener@heavenr.com
Hans
Just a note on CD/DVD longevity. I don't ever use these for "backups" although I do archive projects to CD, and I always copy the first backup onto another. However I have Music CDs that were among the first produced, around 1983 I think, and they have no problems (yet)
Don't confuse the two. Carbonite backs up files. I've never had a problem, never had it be slow. And when I needed to restore the process was incredibly easy and intuitive.
Who cares what the interface looks like.
I almost ditched Carbonite after 3 months of use until I read about the Pro version coming soon. I'm paranoid and want to have my own encyrption key in case something were to happen within the Carbonite network.
But you have to pay another $40/yr for that computer, right? You can't download files to any other machine for free. Or do I have that wrong?
No, that's exactly right. Straight backup. And it works like a charm at what it does. But it sure is easy to want it to do more.
I've attempted to install Carbonite on two different computers with very negative results. With Carbonite installed, when I right-click on a file the dialogue box that opens includes the Carbonite options to backup or not backup the file. Fair enough.
However, when I right-click on a folder, the dialogue box does not open up, windows freezes for about 15 seconds, then I get a 'Report Error to Windows' dialogue box and my computer is returned to me. The only way I can regain right-click access to folders is to remove (uninstall) Carbonite.
This is a shame, because I could REALLY use the service. I currently use Data Deposit Box, but they tend to garble my VOIP calls. Carbonite is supposedly good at reducing this type of interference.
If anyone has any input as to how to eliminate this problem with my folders (so that I may reinstall the product) then I'd be grateful.
For the cost of a cup of coffee, this is a great deal!
Regards,
Paul.
Here's Carbonite's response:
I’m sorry you are having a problem. We have discovered a bug where people who choose to back up nothing, get the problems you encountered. We are working on a fix. I have deleted your computer so that you can start over. When you get the option to choose what you want backed up, please choose the default, which is docs and settings. You can always go in and right click on anything that you want backed up. Thank you for your patience and we hope to have this issue resolved very soon.
I tried this on all three systems and it didn't work. My advice: Don't update your software for a few weeks, this iteration clearly is flawed and a waste of time.
i use maped drives for everything, so there is noting on the hard drive.
Hi - I'm the VP Marketing at Carbonite. I'm sorry if Customer Support missed your email but I'd be happy to get you through to them. Just email marketing --at-- my company .com. Thanks!
I was contacted this morning (1-20-2007) by the VP Marketing. He helped me with all of the problems I was experiencing as well as giving me some pointers to make it a litle easier. I am now restoring the files lost.
I will go on the record to say the Carbonite people have been very nice in assisitng in all aspects of the restoration of my files.
I feel this has to be one of the best backup/restore program as well as the easiest for all. I will also say most of the problem(s) were my lack of understanding of the complete process as well as forgetting my password. DUHHH
Thanks for listening
<a href='http://www.idrive.com/remote-backup-features.htm" target="_blank">http://www.idrive.com/remote-backup-features.htm'>IDrive-E</a> allows you to perform complete hands-free automated backups of your files and folders to an online location. By default, it will start backing up data in My Documents when your computer is idle, but you can simply backup the files and folders you have selected or schedule backups of data that you want. There is absolutely no complex procedure involved here as the application’s user interface allows you to perform backups and restores of data with lot of ease. The application does incremental backups by transferring only the modified portions of a file that has changed since the last backup.
There is no need for users looking to backup mapped drive to go elsewhere. IDrive-E allows you to backup mapped drives. The backups will continue even after you logoff from the system, if you have chosen the NT Service mode while installation. You can also do reliable backups of open files like Outlook files (.pst), QuickBooks, MS-Excel and more. With minimum fuss, you can Sync the contents of your IDrive-E account with that on your ‘My Computer’.
Coming to restore, IDrive-E allows you to restore 30 old versions of files backed up. All communication is safe as there is 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption on transfer and 256-bit AES encryption on storage. Check it out.
You don’t get it dude - You're hemorrhaging credibility and getting your silly company blacklisted faster than you can post your next comment spam.
Get a clue.
I sent multiple messages to customer service and, when there was no response I sent a message to marketing. I have not recieved any support for this problem. It has been about three weeks since my first message. Is this the normal level of customer service for these guys?
My biggest concern with these FREE or at the very lowest low cost services is what happens when they get millions of users? Surely the cost goes up a million fold too, how will they survive? I for one would be happy to pay / subscribe to a service that has a good fee paying clientele and know the company has a sustainable business model and not likely to go burst. Imagine the company going burst and you having lost your Laptop/PC with all its data!
My second thought is these companies do not offer a second and third data centre that keeps the clients (ours) data replicated in real time and backed up in case of fire/flood/storm or terrorism. There is no service level guarantee? There is no mention of we will NEVER lose your data….where do we stand with such vague or no service level promises /agreements.
Schmed: Not sure, when I've had to interact with the support folks they got back with me very quickly. Are you on the trial or have you bought a year of service? They may give priority to paying customers.
Siberia: Mozy is brand new so no idea on how they work. For the price, I'm fine with the chance they could go out of business (anyone can) as well as not having multiple backup centers. If you need or want that level of backup, you need to be paying a lot more than $5 a month.
I just got an email from Carbonite. They said that the problem may be due to my internet connection being slightly unstable. Since I was able to connect to the internet, I assumed there were no “stability” issues. However, when I followed the customer support advice and reset my cable and modem, Carbonite worked fine.
Email that was sent to me (today) from Carbonite:
“Carbonite needs a secure connection from your computer to our servers in order to process your backup properly. Occasionally, your Internet connection may be slightly unstable. This is usually not noticable in your web browser or other Internet applications (other than perhaps a slight decrease in speed) but it can delay or prevent Carbonite from backing up until corrected. In most cases, restarting your computer and your cable or dsl modem (and router, if any) will reset your Internet connection and will allow Carbonite to continue properly.”
After 4 emails, both through the site, and their built in support, and about 3 days later, i finally received a message saying they didn't know what the problem was, but "they're working on my issue".
It's now been over a week, and i still am not able to restore my files. The error i received in my history panel is "status code 201".
MikeL, that really sucks. I can't blame you for that then. If they had lost all my data, I would also be upset. So far I've had nothing but good experiences myself.
I just installed the Carbonite program and my floppy drive is doing the same thing. It just started, I never it come on itermittently before. I've searched their support files and have not found any reference to this behavior.
Now I am having a nightmare trying to delete Carbonite from my computer.
Very disappointed !
Anyone have any suggestions or alternatives to Carbonite?
LESSON LEARNED!!!
During the migration from Xp I ended up restoring 20Gb of data, which came down eventually (seemed to be limited to around 1 Mbps), only get get backed up again (Duh!) at ~300 kbps.
So apart from the rate caps, it's been humming away and I've not had any concerns.
I mostly backup docs, music, photos, so only occasionally set exe etc to backup.
So overall a happy customer...
@Ben: Sorry you had problems. I still have had nothing but success with Carbonite. The new Explorer link lets you view all of your backed up files and grab anything you want either by file, directory, or the whole backup. Very nice.
@Nigel: Glad to hear it's worked well for you!
I'm a senior support rep with Carbonite. I'm sorry to hear you had trouble resolving your issue. I tried searching for you within our system but could not find your issue when searching by your first and last name.
While we don't operate an incoming call center yet, we DO call out to customers when an issue cannot be resolved effectively by e-mail. I want to find out why that didn't happen in your case so we can do better in the future.
Would you mind providing me with a little more information? Thanks in advance. (My e-mail address is lpallazola at carbonite dot com.)
Len Pallazola
Carbonite Customer Support
www.carbonite.com
Carbonite is a fine service for what is intened for - personal backup, but at a glance, Moby looks like it has all and more. The 2G limit is sufficient for evaluation and the ongoing cost is comparable - I'm trying Moby as we speak.
Jeff - The Ausmerican
www.TrailingSpouse.NET
After initial problems I successfully restored all my data under the guidance of a Carbonite Service Rep. named David Alger. It took a lot of patience, maybe some due to ignorance on my part, but a multitude of issues which I needed to learn.
My initial post was June 26, 2007
Eddchen
I'd like to see integration with Vista's "previous versions" feature (in fact right now this feature -- in ultimate/business/enterprise breaks Carbonite's ability to backup files in use, yet it itself is invaluable). Need both features to work in concert for the best backup experience.
My Son uses Mosy and it's more suited for online sharing & manual operation (can be scheduled though) rather than a seemless backup.
This is why you see many posting of people who cannot get their data back. Wait until they are bought out and go out of business, good luck then.
Why would you put sensitive data with a provider you know nothing about and has NO CALL CENTER?
New players are simply NOT making money. Would you trust a lawyer who only charges only $10 an hour? No, you would not think him reputable as reputable lawyers in the business chagre 200 times that.
Free, or extremely low priced service providers then are not motivated by profit, but by client acquisition in the hope of either selling other services, or selling their client list, lest they fold. They are on borrowed time.
We believe this market will eventually shake out the low quality players in favor of high-quality players simply because data today has premium value, especially to businesses.
The axiom “you get what you pay for” is quite applicable in the online backup world. Companies that charger higher prices are taking measures to provide a secure environment, high-reliability, and quality customer service to clients, thus their costs are higher.
Regards, Joe
You seem to be confusing what normal people are backing up with what a business would call sensitive data. Obviously a business would not use a service like this for mission-critical data. For the vast majority of people, $4 a month is acceptable for a 99% probability that you can get your data back. (Personally I think it is much higher as I and everyone I personally know who has used Carbonite to restore data has had no problem doing so). If you demand 99.9999% recovery, then you have to pay many times more money. It's that simple.
$0.15/year/GB and average customer uses abot 10 to 15GB
of memory.
I agree with Brian, about you're missing the target audience of Mozy and Carbonite. Though I recall reading somewhere that Mozy just scored an Enterprise gig at a big company, might have been their blog.
More to the point, just because some one can do something cheaper than what is "established" doesn't mean they're losing money. I run conferences, and we charge less than any of 3 day conference, and still make a profit, and provide an event people talk about.
Moreover, history shows that the market shakes out the overpriced players, more than anything else. I know I'm not buying desktop computers for 4,000 dollars anymore.
My .02
Yes one can deliver low cost and quality, but there is a breaking point.
And as for memory being just 0.15/year/GB, that does not count the cost of backup servers, data center, bandwidth, etc.
My real point is simply to be cautious when someone tries to sell you something that seems too good to be true.
I'd really like to know what they are backing up onto. Why do I think they archiving onto tape? I'll email them and ask and see if they'll tell.
When we started Carbonite, our market research showed that most people don't back up their PCs because it's a) too complicated and b) too expensive. We watched PC-literate people struggling with backup systems that makes you choose your backup set. We came to the conclusion that backup ought to be like buying home insurance -- you pay some money and your worries go away. Period. That's where the unlimited capacity idea came from. Carbonite has plenty of features for making all sorts of choices, but 95% of our users never bother -- they just let Carbonite backup everything. And I don't blame them -- backup is a pretty boring application.
Thanks to all who have posted useful information on this blog.
BTW I think your aims are spot on (although who am I to comment on the financial aspects!). I continue to point to your application in my day job as an example of simplicity/transparency (for the end user). Very much in the "just get on with it" category.
My father (in late 70s, although reasonable techie) is now also using carbonite - so much easier than DVDs etc. He probably has less than 5Gb backed up! (unlike my 50Gb).
I truly hope you continue to be successful.
I have had some problems with it failing to start backing up (I still don't know why, nor did their support people). It just refused to backup- no explanation. However, it normally runs just fine without any hassle whatsoever. It did take a while to backup the files initially (25GB of music for a start!), but it keeps up to date very pretty quickly.
I recommend it to my friends and customers- it works well.
Yours,
Alan
I've had no problems with backup or restore - in fact basically I need do very little, carbonite's just there plugging away!
I'm considering Carbonite for my backup needs. I have about 150 GB of data to wrangle... I've heard of some users running in to difficulty with this service once they cross the 100 GB threshold, despite the advertised 'unlimited' space. I would imagine that Carbonite would be taking a financial loss on individuals who upload this much.
So, is there anyone reading this who has more than 100 GB backup up with Carbonite, and what has your experience been like so far?
thanks much!
I usually backup my email using e backup
after a format I simply run the program and this sets up all my email accounts that it saved - emails favs etc.
Have installed trial carbonite.
If I format, then run ebackup to get my email functional quickly, then let carbonite run, will it "overwrite" my email settings and mail etc?
anyone know?
cheers
As an aside I've moved more to a "services" model - I have my email hosted by a 3rd party (not my ISP) & accessed via IMAP. That way I see the same email on all systems, and backup is their problem.....
Here's my experience thus far...
I am a software engineer, and one thing I had to overcome was the exclusion of .exe, .dll, and other file extensions that are common by-products in a development environment. There is no straightforward way to select multiple files with prohibited extensions in bulk. This is something that Carbonite needs to address in a more flexible manner. In order to overcome this limitation, I have to first DISABLE Carbonite using the taskbar icon, highlight the parent folder, and (here's the trick): Use "Search" and search for *, or just leave the search field blank. That will generate a list of every file in the selected tree. Then, use Select All. Then, right click on any selected file (making sure you maintain the selection list), and choose ->Carbonite->Back This Up from the pop-up panel. This will override some (but not all) of the built-in exclusions. If you just highlight the parent folder in Explorer and tell Carbonite to back it up, you won't get any files that match Carbonite's exclusion list. Now, use the taskbar icon to re-enable Carbonite. The reason it's necessary to disable and re-enable is that if you try to flag a large number of files for backup while its running, things get P A I N F U L L Y slow and Windows Explorer becomes unresponsive.
Note: there are *lots* of other files that still get excluded, that Carbonite doesn't bother to tell you about. For instance, if you have any folder called i386, forget it. Any files with an underscore in the extension are also ignored (can't overcome these). Any files that end with .old are normally ignored. Carbonite uses checksums on their registry settings so that you cannot edit these values manually. Any attempt to do so will damage the installation and cripple the application (permanently), so DON'T even try it.
The other annoyance is that during the initial backup, about once every five minutes or so, the entire system becomes unresponsive for 15-30 seconds. No question this is caused by Carbonite, but I expect this will cease once the initial backup is complete.
I like the concept of the "Carbonite Drive" icon on the desktop, which affords the user the ability to browse the backup set and restore or manage the contents of the backup.
BTW, overall, I happen to like this product. I am just offering some tips here that might help others.
Regards
Gene
2 things
First I would like the option to just back something up and leave it solely on their drives.
Secondly, I would like the carbonite drive password protected.
Reason why
If somone walks off with my laptop, I dont want them seeing all my boring holiday snaps - hence backup and leave on their drives
secondly
steal my laptop - go to my carbonite drive and delete all my data - oh what fun!!!
laptop and data all gone
something tells me that I will keep with them, but as I can backup and leave data with diino, i am still stuck in the middle
anyone from the company like to update us?
cheers
Nick
If your laptop is stolen, and you don't have the hard disk password set, you are pretty much screwed. In five minutes, a thief can read anything that isn't encrypted on your drive, and he doesn't need to know your Windows password. Really. It's so simple it's stupid.
As far as re-securing your backed up content, install Carbonite on another PC and change the password on your account immediately. That would prevent someone from purging your backup. But then, if the thief gets far enough to see the Windows desktop, they already own you. You'll have better reasons to lose sleep.
The good news:
The hard disk password on newer drives is NOT easily circumvented. It's not like BOIS passwords that are stored in NVRAM and can be reset with a jumper. It's actually one-way encrypted and stored along with the low level API that manages it on the magnetic media in an area on the disk that is not *directly* accessible via the drive electronics (i/e you can't use low level calls to read or alter the sector where it resides). Meaning that even if you were to go so far as to replace the circuit board on the drive itself with a fresh one (assuming you had the expertise and equipment), and then installed it in another PC, you still wouldn't bypass the password. There was an exploit at one time, but that's been corrected on newer units. There are data recovery services that can break into it using advanced and highly secretive measures, but it costs a lot more than the hardware is worth, so unless you are an elected official or a famous billionaire, they probably aren't going to bother wasting time and money to get your family photos.
Best regards
Gene
Higene
how do I set a hard disk password?
sony vaio laptop with dual core, about 1 year old - running XP
cheers
Nick
You need to go into your BIOS while your machine is booting up and look for settings related to security. Sony's do have this option. Specifically, you need to password protect the disk(s). If you have more than one physical disk, you should see an entry for each. Be careful when using the BIOS settings, as you can mess things up if you change something that shouldn't be changed. You can also password protect the BIOS itself from being changed, and additionally require a password to boot up the machine. So, you'll be in password heaven. The thief that steals your laptop will probably toss it out onto the freeway. Oh well.
Oh, and whatever you do, don't lose that password!!!
Cheers....
Gene
Just looked
security section, I ahve two password options
set
machine password
user password
and ifo saying I have to enable the option -
enable passwords on power up
its a phoenix bios
what does each do?
I take it that one is the bios - can this be overwritten / grounded to default etc?
Do i need both set - not sure if I have that option though
cheers
Nick
Can't help u with that. Call Sony support. It doesn't sound like the option to set the HDD password is included in that BIOS. It's available on Thinkpad and Acer. Anyway, it's off-topic for this blog. Sorry...
Good luck.
Gene
I've been thinking about online backup for a while now but haven't yet decided who to go for.
I know the guy above who posted above IDrive-E did sound pretty spammy but when I looked into the service it did seem alot more functional than the competition and offers mapped drive support, which is a major advantage for me (having multiple machines in the network). It also sounded like it has better performance than alot of the other services.
Has anyone used IDrive at all? I spent hours searching for 'reviews' but unfortunately the company behind the service has gone the blogging for dollars route of paying bloggers for reviews which all say the same thing. The service looks good, but I don't want to invest until I can be sure they are as reliable as the Carbonite people.
Thanks for the help.
Thats exactly what I wanted to do with all my photos. Carbonite wont allow this as far as I know.
Diino will. Might be worth having a look at it.
cheers
Nick
NAS devices are becoming more popular in the home. I don't have one yet, although it's high up on the agenda since I have multiple PCs.
Much of the "important" material I need backed up will move to NAS. If carbonite won't back this up then I would leave for another service.,
Of course ideally the backup would run on the NAS device - something like a NLSU2.
I guess MS home server is a step in this direction (and carbonite may run on that) but I hope they're looking into these scenarios and figuring out what it means to them.
Things are changing...
Just sold a nslu2.
A load of rubbish. I could only get it to run with a 2 gig usb flash drive - fat32 (maybe ntfs cant remember).
It is formatted using a linux jobby - ext3? if I remember. This means that you have to use a driver if you want to plug it into your usb on your computer to back up stuff before connecting it to your router. Otherwise you can back your data up wirelessly, but this takes time. I did try fat32 as the latest firmware allows with a lacai? usb hard disk, but came home after a few weeks with everything gone, had to format again. read the forums about this at linksys. tech support a joke and if you email a message to technical, no reply. Flame them in the newsgroup and they threaten to throw you out of the group within seconds.
Try the buffalo gear - better reviews
main topic
Anyone from carbonite read any of this? - if so lets have a chat
cheers
However on those comments.. I guess I'm quite technical, know linux/unix pretty well & would value the "community" that has sprung up around the NLSU2. I'm also familiar with ext3/samba etc which is the basis for the NLSU2.
But you're right -- not being able to take a NTFS format disk from PC and put it into the NAS *is* a real limitation for windows users, especially since external HDD are becoming more popular.
Why not a whole datacenter? I could if I wanted to, afford a dedicated box to use as a remote file server, why doesn't Carbonite support that?
If you've got a NAS, maybe you should look into something a little more above and beyond the "Joe blow" back up option that Mozy and Carbonite offer. Their whole point is to be a simple easy to use solution for home users, not those with multiple machines, NAS's ect.
> ... I duly contacted tech support. That was six days ago now.
This is a deeply distressing story. Please post the follow-up, if any.
I can now restore individual files but can not restore all of the files in one go as you should be able to. As I have over 25000 files backed up it is not a process I want to do on each file. Customer Support are now being very very helpful and we are working thru this last minor issue. I'll let everyone know when it has been resolved.
ABUAMY - If you use one of your computers as a file server and run Carbonite on that one then it can backup all the important data files for all of your computers.
*If you can prove that you suffered damages* (e.g. documented financial loss) directly associated with this event, you've got a great case on the basis of "gross negligence" on the part of Carbonite. No disclaimer in any agreement will protect them from that. The fact that they knowingly and carelessly allowed you to be misled via the backup indicator is something that will go a long way toward convincing them to settle for a tidy sum. Chances are, it will never reach a courtroom, because it would cost them far more to fight it than to settle. A certified letter from your attorney will garner an immediate response. There are plenty of hungry lawyers that will take this on a contingency basis if the loss is substantial. At worst, they are likely to change the way they conduct themselves as a result. At best, you walk away with some cash. The hardest part for you is substantiation of actual damages.
Follow up here if you decide to pursue it.
Good luck...
The bottom line is that the vast majority of users have no problems and are able to recover their data. This is all any online backup provider can truly offer.
Later on it is not possible to click on a picture file and say always back up this type of file. For each file I want to back up, I am now going to have to select it individually and back it up. Not much fun. In addition it is going to take days to upload 10 gigabytes of data again.
So the lesson to be drawn is don't make any mistakes when you right-click on a file!
I did uncover a minor issue when trying to restore website files under IIS (i.e. the Inetpub folder) the carboniteService would sit at 70% and not actually restore the files. I figured out that if I stoped the IIS service the problem went away. Anyway this has been given to their development team to develp a fix for. I am probably a very unusual customer for them in that I have professional development tools and programs installed that the normal home user doesn't have installed.
They seem to have taken by feedback on board and I noticed after I complained they updated the standard email responses to queries to say they are backed up at the moment and are taking longer to answer queries.
I must point out I haven't lost any data at all from carbonite everything that I marked for back up I have managed to restore (eventually). Therefore a lawsuit is not necessary and never really occured to me. Working in IT myself I knew my data was somewhere and it was just a matter of sorting the glitch out. I fully intend to continue using carbonite because I think it is still excellent value for money.
Would I recommend it to friends: Yes I think I still would do but with the same caveat I have always said as long as it is not your only backup. (Maybe I should have listend to my own advice and done something about my local backup that had been failing for a few months). Lessons learnt by me never be slack in your own local backups.
One interesting point is that if someone stole your computer and right-clicked on a folder and chose don't backup anything, you wouldn't be able to recover anything at that point. So nothing would remain to be downloaded to your newly bought computer. I think that backups need to be retained and perhaps only flagged for deletion after a certain period of time.
Regarding the stolen computer issue: in my opinion, if someone stole my computer, I'd have a lot more to worry about than just the fear that they could delete my backup files. Yet another reason to always, always set up your systems to require a user name and password to log in to the operating system.
Login passwords are trivial to get around with physical access to the machine.
And the FAQ is pretty helpful...
I HIGHLY reccomend it, and whenever reading comments on the internet, always keep in mind that the “problems” will outweigh the “satisfied” people since those with issues complain more.. and also many manyu times the issue has to do with the individual users problems, not a flaw with the program… UNLESS EVERYONE is saying they have the SAME ISSUE.. which as you see above isn’t the case.
Here are some things about Carbonite:
- It puts a green dot on your file and folders when it is backed up. You ALWAYS know what is backed up. Or what is pending. GOOD feature.
- The initial backup can take a long while.. but it is totally painless. I didn’t know about these so called “restrictions” to the amount of data you can supposedly store. I have many many files it is backing up and it is 39% done after a few weeks. But that is fine… The client runs with NO performance degredation on my computer at all. It sits there silently and does its thing… After 50 GB it slows down the process. But it does eventually get it all. And this of course is done once.
- Installing was VERY easy. Someone mentioned the non professional looking items… Wel, the interface is fine.. some of their “demos” may be too humerous for some… but c’mon.. we live in a world where Washington Mutual bank nicknamed itself WaMu!
- It does NOT by default back up videos. Even with the paid version. You actually have to select EVERY subfolder you have videos in and click backup all file sin this folder. it is a PAIN. I emaled them and they said an easier way to do this is coming (the biggest problem being is that the root doesn’t even include the subfolders. you have to click on each individual subfolder!) But once you do it once, its done.
- Some people are mentioning issues because they do not know their password or activation code. Well, if you forget your ATM code good luck getting into your bank account! Carbonite gives you this information and it is available from their online web site as well. Regardless of if it is installed.
- The one caveat is there is no web interface for file restore. Maybe they will have this one day.. I hope so. Even the junk Dell Datasafe has it (although it never worked for me). So if you are away from your computer you can not access your files. However, Carbonite is a backup program, not a file sync or file access program. You want those? Try mionet which works pretty good www.mionet.com or orb which works good, and makes your computer a file sharing machine and is free… www.orb.com. Both of those let you get into your PC.
All that said, again, I really reccomend carbonite. After major issues with Dell Datasafem I did a lot of research, and the features, and ease of use of Carbinite semms great. If you don’t belive me, try the trial yourself and see.
As for “bad” tech support… please… what is GOOD tech support? There isn’t any… and they always go off the same information you can find in any companies knowledge base anyway.. which if you are calling tech support, you probably can’t find the answer there if you are an advanced user… Not to say Carbonite is bad or good in the tech area… but unfortinately, we have let the computer tech support industry become a joke all around. I wish everyone could have phone support like American Express.
Anyway… I hope you enjoy Carbonite as much as I… Doing local backups to an external drive is ok.. until something catastrphic happens… Keeping offsite DVDs or BluRay backups is also ok… but takes a lot of time and how often can you update them and moce them away offsite…
Carbonite gets 2 thumbs up from me!
Just to say I did successfully restore ~20Gb data a couple of months back - ok it took a while, but got there in the end (despite reboots etc). And I did check I got all files.
(Main gotcha I hit is that I backup my photos... but I also have some small mpegs in there.. and have to keep manually setting the "backup video files in this folder" option each time a new folder is created. Grrr. I hate that!)
I knew one has to right click and select "back this up" to enable exe, dll and others to be backed up. What I didn't know is how many file types are excluded. I list them all here but they have been listed on this post:
http://www.tomkirkham.com/node/109
You will learn that Carbonite's exclusions will make it impractical for any user doing serious work who has multi gigabytes of data.
I learned it is impossible to inventory/compare thousands of files to insure one is not missing something important.
I discovered how SLOW explorer runs when accessing the Carbonite Backup Drive. Mine crashed three out of five attempts. I NEVER was able to view the recovery log. My system would not display it. 2.4GHZ w/2GB RAM.
which means I have no idea where else it has struck amongst my 10,000+
files, combined with my total inability to get an answer from Carbonite help, is a real negative for me.
Give it a try, you won't be sorry.
1) Can you use one account to support your household of PC-s, 4-5 PC-s?
2) If so, can you mix the operating systems XP and Vista?
3) Is there a 800- support call number, I did not see on the sign-up page that bother me some?
Any feed back is appreciated.
Thanks Russ
1) No each computer needs its own account (it's already insanely cheap at $5 a month)
2) See above
3) No 800 number, and the support at Carbonite does suck (they rarely respond to emails). So if you need good support you're probably going to have to go with one of the more expensive backup services. To me this is nothing but a safety net to supplement the backups and Ghost images I create here at home.
So can anyone offer an explanation as to why when I attempt to install the programme, the installation file simply disappears! Weird, or what?
So far, I'm very impressed with the software and the customer service - they were extremely professional and friendly, and quickly found the issue.
I wanted to make sure that the existence of the 800# support number was mentioned - it's been a common complaint that one doesn't exist, when in reality it does.
Can anyone confirm that when the programme is installed the installation file disappears? It happens to me (but without actually installing the programme) but Carbonite say that this is normal which seems strange to say the least.
My back up is being done now and I've signed up for my subscription.
Any suggestion would be appreciated.
- the 3.5.89 client version had a problem where, following a temporary server outage, it did not resume backups. My PC was one of those affected. To be fair, they did email me specifically saying my PC was affected, but only after a few days.
- the online support form demands a captcha (already annoying, why can't the Carbonite client authenticate itself to support site?) that is not working at all at the moment - I tried 7 or 8 times. Since the phone support is only 9-5 weekdays, I can't even log a support request.
Also I'm unsure if Carbonite backs up open files - if not it's much less useful as you have to remember to close applications and of course it normally backs up continuously through the day.
Would be interested in people's experiences of Mozy.
And Carbonite won't come out and discuss whether there are other file formats suffering the same fate.
Bottom line: you think Carbonite is saving all of your data files as listed on their website? Okay...keep dreamin'.
Service update failure has cost me to waste all kinds of time trying to fix Carbonites screw up.
Their customer service line hangs up on me because they have too many calls!
But the bottom line is, if it doesn't suit your needs, then don't buy it. For some people, me included, it's great. It provides me with an extra layer of security when on the road. And I can be pretty sure that if my laptop is stolen (as has happened), or the hard disk dies (not yet, fingers crossed), I'm going to lose very little, if anything, in terms of data. Yes, if a hard disk dies in the middle of writing that long report I'm in trouble, but I doubt if anything can guard against that unless you're sitting at a regular work station with a back up system across a local network. But sitting working in a hotel room in eastern Europe, Carbonite is far and away the best insurance I've found.
For the traveller, it's great, and great value at fifty bucks a year.
Solution:
1. Uninstall Carbonite
2. Delete all reference to Carbonite from your Registry (may or may not be necessary but I did it that way)
3. Transfer the Carbonite license to a different computer (you lose all backed up files but what good are they if they can’t be restored anyway)
4. Back up a small file
5. Transfer the Carbonite license back to the original computer
Bingo, you can now select files for backup again.
a) Carbonite is a windows application - it starts at boot time and quietly sits in the background backing your files up
b) You can browse the carbonite site using firefox
Admittedly when you launch the carbonite gui it does appear to use the internet explorer components to render the html and browse, but it's kinda seamless (unless you're using linux of course, which carbonite doesn't work with....)
Have I missed the point of the question? if so, sorry..
The .90 version of the sw doesn't work with the updated controls from IE8, so the gui won't work.
It is infuriating, too, that while you are waiting (about an hour) for phone help, they repeat an ad for their special paid service, with shorter wait times and senior tech support staff. What is this, other than an admission that their regular staff are dodos in capable of helping you (which was the case with the one I eventually talked with)?
Jim
days as a Carbonite customer are definitely numbered.
I've blogged about Carbonite before - http://angel-carbonite-backup.blogspot.com/2008/07... - it's important to research all the options with something as important as your PC backup.
As someone else said, waiting for their tech support has been awful. No email replies for 6 days now, held for 2 hours on the phone yesterday, finally gave up. I just want to know why this is happening. Anyone else?
Strike 1
<a href="http://www.sharewarecheap.com/Handy-Backup-Pro_sof...;
Kami
I purchased 20 licenses with the intention of rolling it out to all of our users, and everyone was so angry with me for installing it on their workstation, that I ended up removing it from everyone's workstation entirely. (We run Dell Workstations that we purchased about a year and a half ago).
I tried contacting Carbonite tech support via phone....after several hours of being on hold, I gave up. I even tried different days of the week and I never got through.
Their online help suggested that I change a setting that sets Carbonite's Internet usage to a lower priority, but that did not make a difference. They also suggested running a CHKDSK but that did not solve the problem of the Carbonite application being a resource HOG!
What's worse....I tried to get refunded for the licenses that we did not use and Carbonite refused to offer a refund for the unused licenses. Unbelievable.
There's a potential conflict with Eset NOD32 that's not as yet on the Carbonite support centre.
Follow this link for a solution:
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=18...