Carbonite Backup

Posted At : August 14, 2006 1:59 PM | Posted By : Brian Kotek
Related Categories: Computers

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?

Comments (170) | Send | del.icio.us | Digg It! | Linking Blogs |
| 15207 Views
Comments (Comment Moderation is enabled. Your comment will not appear until approved.)
[Add Comment]
I tried it a couple weeks back, and it didnt work well with mapped drives.
# Posted By Sami Hoda | 8/14/06 3:20 PM
I have been using it for 2 months. It is great. Ofcourse they tell you in their website that it can not be used with mapped drives.
# Posted By absi | 8/14/06 6:03 PM
I did try (and blog about) it a while ago. And though the idea is great, when you have gig's worth of data to back up i prefer sticking it on DVD and holding it myself in a seperate location. It was taking to long to upload all my essential files. Though its probably better suited to the home users IMHO.
# Posted By Andy Jarrett | 8/15/06 6:16 AM
Interesting, Brian. Thanks for sharing. You know, this reminds me that some years ago I used an earlier incarnation of such an online backup service. (Gosh, I wish I could remember what it was called. It was easily 5 years ago. Anyone else remember another consumer-level online backup from back then?) I'd forgotten all about such services. Thanks for the reminder.

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. :-)
# Posted By Charles Arehart | 8/15/06 7:45 AM
Charlie, it's actually a setting in the Captcha.xml file. I have randStrLen set to "2" (though for some reason this generates 3 characters), and the randStrType set to "alphaUCase" so the characters are all in upper case to avoid confusion. As far as I know, you should be able to make this change in the 5.0 version as well.
# Posted By Brian Kotek | 8/15/06 8:41 AM
Andy, it does take a few days to upload all the data initially (my 60 gigs took about 3 days), but once this initial copy is made, subsequent uploads are fairly quick. And since download speed is far faster than upload speed on a cable modem, restoring data from the backup is much more rapid. I'm less concerned with it taking a day to get my data back than I am about having a constantly up-to-date, offsite backup available. Using DVDs is always an option but even they take time to create and unless you burn new ones every few days they get out of date pretty quickly.
# Posted By Brian Kotek | 8/15/06 8:45 AM
Thanks for that, Brian (the clarificaiton about the lyla setting). I'd just not explored that before. I appreciate the pointer (and of course all the work that Peter has done on the Lyla itself).

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. :-)
# Posted By Charles Arehart | 8/15/06 10:07 AM
Carbonite user here too. Once you get past the initial upload it's great. I recently wiped my laptop to do a clean install, then just went into carbonite and pulled the things I needed back onto my machine. Very efficient.

I'm working on putting it on all the machines in the house.
# Posted By John | 8/15/06 11:50 AM
Have you guys tried out <a href="http://mozy.com">Mozy</a>;? They have a free option, which I liked, and I hear that they're developing a mac client that should be releasing pretty soon. Just my 2 cents.
# Posted By Steve Smarmin | 8/16/06 9:06 PM
Nice free option, but limited to 2 Gb. I need more space (I have about 80 Gb backed up at Carbonite).
# Posted By Brian Kotek | 8/16/06 9:47 PM
Sounds like you're getting pretty close to the edge with Carbonite. Apparently they cut you off after about 100GB. (Not so "unlimited," looks like, which I think is lame. That's another topic for another day I guess.)
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?
# Posted By Steve | 8/17/06 9:18 PM
I've actually had over 100 Gb at Carbonite at various times. Their site says clearly that you can back up "as much data as you have". For $5 a month, that is a really sweet deal. You could always contact them and ask.
# Posted By Brian Kotek | 8/17/06 10:16 PM
Can you just span your data across 2 email accounts if they start to complain about the amount of storage? Just a thought.
# Posted By Todd | 8/22/06 7:35 PM
I just crossed the 10gb mark with carbonite. No complaints from them yet.
# Posted By John | 8/22/06 7:56 PM
I'm using carbonite and like the concept of the service.
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.
# Posted By Chris | 9/6/06 5:37 PM
I like the set it and forget it feature of Carbonite a lot, and I find it works really well -- change a file, and in a minute or two it's been uploaded. But it's not perfect. It doesn't do versions. It doesn't archive (delete a file on your local computer and after a month it vanishes from the backup too). You need a seperate subscription for every computer in the house.
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.
# Posted By Fred Hapgood | 9/12/06 8:12 AM
I recently tried Carbonite under their trial offer. When I wasn't getting technical questions answered in a timely fashion I let the service lapse. I received an email from them stating my data would only be saved for 15 days.
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.
# Posted By Matthew | 9/12/06 10:25 PM
I've had a couple of questions to ask them and they were answered almost immediately (i.e. within hours) via the contact form on their site.

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.
# Posted By Brian Kotek | 9/12/06 11:33 PM
Matthew - I run marketing at Carbonite. I'm very sorry your questions were not answered - can you please tell me how you tried to contact us (if there is a glitch somewhere that's stopping us from getting other users' questions I'd really like to know about it. In any case, my name is Swami and my email address is my first name @carbonite.com.

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)
# Posted By Swami Kumaresan | 9/13/06 6:37 AM
Does anyone know the actual lifespan of a DVD or CD disk? I've heard 3-5 years max. Of course, a single crack in the hub that crosses into the data area renders the disk immediately "null-and-void" -- in fact, I just had to buy a new copy of Windows XP because the master installation disk developed such a crack. Not to mention the hysterics that have been raised about disks exploding in DVD drives if adhesive labels are used on them. And I recently lost a transfer CD because my Sharpie pen bled through the die layer; had to drive back home and burn another.

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
# Posted By Michael Heavener | 9/18/06 2:02 PM
I'm a big fan. It is the way software ought to work. Really simple, just does what it's supposed to do and it's not in your face. I wish I had more software products that just quietly did their job. BTW, somebody said something about mapped drives -- I checked on that and they do not back up network drives because it's just more than you can ask for at $4/month. They will have a "pro" version some day they said and that would. Also, they said Mac version is under way.

Hans
# Posted By Hans Klein | 9/19/06 2:25 PM
Haven't tried Carbonite but I am paranoid about backups having been in IT for 25 years, so may look at it. Currently I mirror drives and use external drives for offsite backup -gets messy with a few systems around the place.

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)
# Posted By Richard Tugwell | 9/27/06 8:56 AM
I will give Carbonite 2 thumb down. Go compare with DriveHQ WWWBackup. Look at the screenshots and features at www.drivehq.com. Carbonite is like kiddy with its interface also like a 6-year kid, lovely, but you cannot really use it to backup your files. Lots of drawbacks, and it is so awkward to use it when you have used a true backup application before. The drawbacks? it has NOOO web access! Sometimes I need to access my backup files from IE, because the other computer doesn't let me install backup software; and it cannot let me schedule a backup tasks. When you run a default backup, it takes forever and ever...
# Posted By Jeremy | 10/5/06 8:19 PM
Sounds like you want storage, not back up. Carbonite from what I understand isn't online storage. It's back up. It's to back up your machine. If you're accessing from other machines, then you want online storage.

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.
# Posted By John | 10/5/06 9:04 PM
DriveHQ is also $700 a year for 100 gigs (which is what I have backed up with Carbonite).
# Posted By Brian Kotek | 10/5/06 9:58 PM
Ha!! Wow that sounds great! But at least it has a web interface...
# Posted By John | 10/5/06 11:07 PM
My only gripe with Carbonite the exclusion of using personal keys to encrypt data. However, I did read somewhere Carbonite is planning to release a Pro version in which you can specify your own encryption key, backup schedules, etc.

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.
# Posted By wujimon | 10/21/06 2:12 PM
My evaluation is Carbonite might be good for low-end home users, not for serious users. I want the flexibility to choose folders to backup. There is no need to backup a lot of junk files online and wasting my bandwidth and days or weeks of upload time. I particularly miss the feature of scheduling, which is available in all other backup applications I have ever used. Moreover, the fact that I have uploaded my files online, but cannot access them from other's computers in differet locations is in-excusable to me. Yes, Carbonite might be cheaper, and that is the only advantage I can see.
# Posted By Jeremy | 11/1/06 11:47 PM
Jeremy, have you even used Carbonite? It doesn't sound like it. First, you can choose whatever folders you want to back up. Second, you aren't "wasting" your bandwidth because Carbonite only does the backup while system and network utilization are low. The same goes for scheduling, I don't want to have to schedule the backup, I want it to happen on an ongoing basis. Finally, you absolutely can access your files from another computer, that computer just needs to be running Carbonite. For the absurdly low price of $5 a month (essentially FREE) for unlimited space and good peace of mind, I think you are not only being too demanding, but it sure doesn't sound like you've even tried the service that you are criticizing.
# Posted By Brian | 11/1/06 11:56 PM
Gotta love. "I've never used the service, but I don't like it." I'm dying here in mac land with out carbonite. I hate have to do lump scheduled backups. Driving me batty.
# Posted By John Wilker | 11/2/06 12:45 AM
> Finally, you absolutely can access your files from another computer, that computer just needs to be running Carbonite.

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?
# Posted By Fred Hapgood | 11/2/06 10:58 AM
Fred, Yeah I think you would, not sure. But again, accessing from other computers isn't the task of backup. I'd use a free service like AOLs or Mozy if I just wanted storage. Carbonite backs up whatever folders you want and whatever directory structure you have, I think the point is you can then simply drop the contents right back to where it should be. Or am I missing a point?
# Posted By John Wilker | 11/2/06 11:39 AM
>Or am I missing a point?

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.
# Posted By Fred Hapgood | 11/2/06 1:40 PM
Gentlemen:

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.
# Posted By Paul Carroll | 11/6/06 8:25 AM
Paul, this definitely works fine for me. I know that might not help much but at least you know that it does indeed work for just about everyone else. Have you tried contacting the Carbonite folks directly? When I've communicated with them, they've been very responsive.
# Posted By Brian | 11/6/06 11:53 AM
Paul, sorry to hear it ain't working so hot. My guess is a conflict with something else on your system. Mine works just fine. I agree with Brian, contact their support folks.
# Posted By John Wilker | 11/6/06 12:07 PM
Something's very wrong with my system if it's affecting three different computers the same way...

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.
# Posted By Paul Carroll | 11/6/06 7:08 PM
sounds like the fix is fairly straight forward. Why would you install and select not to back anything up? Even if that is the way you want it, the fix they suggest makes sense. Once installed you can select and de-select any folder/file you like
# Posted By John Wilker | 11/6/06 7:42 PM
I've also had problems with Carbonite affecting my system. After installing Carbonite, I suddnely had apps freezing, Windows refusing to shut down, and complete system lockups 2-3 times per day. I'd really like to use this solution, but not at thexpense of my system's stability...
# Posted By Peter Juhl | 11/11/06 3:47 PM
The fact that so many other people are having no problems at all (myself included, on two different machines) makes me think there is something else causing the problem. And even if it some some bug in Carbonite that affects a very small number of systems, it's an easy uninstall.
# Posted By Brian | 11/11/06 5:09 PM
Hi. I am a happy carbonite subscriber - works so seamlessly. Or rather I was, until installing Vista x64. Unfortunately carbonite doesn't work. I've passed details on to support, and you can read more at http://cherrybyte.blogspot.com/
# Posted By Nigel | 11/23/06 8:36 AM
Take a look at www.arkall.com - much better
# Posted By info | 12/15/06 6:27 PM
Might want to wait until arkall is a product before advertising it. Hard to say "much better" when the site is blank shell suggesting users contact the company to get the software...
# Posted By John Wilker | 12/15/06 6:33 PM
Sounds like the Arkall marketing guy did a Google search for Carbonite and went around trying to point everyone to their half-completed product.
# Posted By Brian | 12/16/06 2:32 PM
Does anyone know of a similar online backup tool that will work for networked drives? or when the PRO version might be comming out?
i use maped drives for everything, so there is noting on the hard drive.
# Posted By John | 12/21/06 11:31 AM
I have Carbonite on two desktops. One of them shot craps,has been repaired and back into service, but I cannot get my files that were backed up to Carbonite. I have left 3 messages (e-mail). I have been told thay have not found a record of my second computer (I have the credit card satement for both)--A little PO'd at the moment--perhaps they will come through
# Posted By Fred the Dog | 1/19/07 10:31 PM
To: "Fred the Dog"
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!
# Posted By Swami Kumaresan | 1/20/07 10:29 AM
Re: the problem I was having with getting a reply as well as the restoring of my files.
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
# Posted By Fred the Dog | 1/20/07 1:50 PM
I'm still Carbonite Challanged, no mac love yet. I was able to transfer my old subscription to my wife's laptop with the help of support, very nice people.
# Posted By John Wilker | 1/20/07 2:13 PM
You guys seem to have missed out the new kid on the free online backup block. It’s called <a href='http://www.idrive.com/'>IDrive-E</a>. On a comparative scale, this application is miles ahead of other apps you are talking about here. There is a 2GB free offer along with another offer for unlimited backups for just $4.95 a month.

<a href='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.
# Posted By Check this out | 2/7/07 8:49 AM
I swear, these Idrive idiots are the worst comment spammers ever.

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.
# Posted By Vince | 2/12/07 1:15 AM
I just installed Carbonite today after a tip from my advisor (who is a mac user but had heard good things). I'm a phd student and so not a home user, but the files I need to back up are pretty standard (pdfs, docs, xls, and stats program files and databases). My officemate just had a tragic hard drive failure and lost all of her data for her study. Since this involved blood tests on people, it can't really be recovered. I just think that for most of us, deliberate backups are too hard to stay on top of. We need something automatic, that doesn't use any human memory/bandwith. The price of the service is great (esp for a student). Now my question is: what do you guys do to back up this back up? Do you still use flash drives/ext HD, or a physical archive like paper or CD? Can I be secure with just Carbonite?
# Posted By Maggie | 3/1/07 9:21 PM
I've been using Carbonite for about a month. It seemed to go very smoothly. After several days I was all backed up. Now I want to clean up my hard drive and reinstall Windows. The problem is that when I browse the Carbonite Drive, which shows all of the backed up files and allows you to restore them, the XP explorer window locks up. I'm afraid I won't be able to get the files I want back since I can't browse to them. Has anyone else had this problem?

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?
# Posted By schmed | 3/17/07 10:10 AM
Carbonite, is very resource hungry from what I gathered and it takes absolutely ages to backup even a small backup set (2GB). I have tried Mozy prior to installing Carbonite and found it much neater and a lot faster.

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.
# Posted By Siberia | 3/18/07 12:10 PM
Maggie: nothing. You're backed up.

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.
# Posted By Brian Kotek | 3/22/07 7:25 PM
I have been unable to connect to the Carbonite server for 3 days. Tech support has failed to respond to my email. I thought it might be my Zone Alarm firewall, but even with it turned off, I still cannot connect to their server to resume backing up. I already paid for a 1-year subscription and they appear to not give a damn.
# Posted By Carbonite subscriber | 3/23/07 12:32 AM
The server is definitely up, I've had continuous backups going for many months. You can try swami at carbonite dot com (the VP of Marketing) as an alternative assuming he is still there. Not sure what to tell you since I've had several dealings with their support (when switching systems) and they responded quickly.
# Posted By Brian Kotek | 3/23/07 11:26 AM
I apologize for my previous post about Carbonite when I complained about not being able to connect to their server….

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.”
# Posted By Carbonite user | 3/23/07 2:44 PM
Maggie et al. I still have not heard from them other than the obligitory auto-email saying they will get back to me with a link to the FAQ. I'm not sure what to think. I subscribed after the first week because (I thought) things were going so well. Hmmmm....
# Posted By schmed | 3/24/07 12:35 AM
I bought two years of service from Carbonite after testing them out successfully. My client drive just crashed and i've been unsuccessfully attempting to restore my files for over a week now.

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".
# Posted By Dissappointed | 4/1/07 1:52 AM
Carbonite doesn't have a "history panel".
# Posted By Brian | 4/2/07 5:09 PM
Actually, there is. Click on GET SUPPORT and then VIEW HISTORY. Unfortunately, I know because I am experiencing the exact same problem as Disappointed (files not restoring due to status code 201). Anyone know of a fix for this? So far, it has been 4 days with no email replies. Ugh.
# Posted By MikeL | 4/3/07 8:43 PM
I too not so for a long time was set by the given question. Searched in the Internet and corresponding literature. And recently on this theme there was an active discussion in my guest book: http://www.freewebs.com/cars-auto/guestbook.htm . Many interesting opinions and reasons have been stated. There were even references on corresponding the Internet-resources. The theme till now remains actual and discussed, therefore at desire can leave the opinion.
# Posted By santshos | 4/9/07 10:55 AM
Tried Carbonite, backed up my files ok. BUT!!! I needed to replace my hard drive ( not Carbonites fault). Carbonite would not download many of my pictures, files & videos. According to Carbonite, its my computers fault not them. Now I lost many pictures of my kids. WARNING DON'T USE IT!!!!
# Posted By Don | 4/10/07 5:11 PM
UPDATE - I was informed today by Carbonite that 3/4 of my data was lost due to a hardware failure with a vendor. I lost so much data. I would no longer recommend this service. It was easy to use, but if it cannot back up my files - what's the point?!?
# Posted By MikeL | 4/10/07 9:14 PM
Don, something else is going on because I had to move to another computer and I was able to pull all of my Carbonite data down with no problems.

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.
# Posted By Brian | 4/12/07 11:33 PM
i have a wonderful 2 year old dell computer with 2 gigs of ddrsdram, and am doing my initial backup of everything (yes, i checked that option) on my computer, with carbonite. in about 24 hours, leaving the computer on overnight, i'm about 40% complete, but......only when i have carbonite running, or working, or backing up, my floppy drive also goes on and off all day and night. the green light comes on for a few seconds at a time, accompanied by the little whirring sound that the floppy drives make. this is extremely annoying to me. any help would be appreciated. i seriously hope this is not a stupid exercise on my part and that i'll have to uninstall carbonite when i'm done.
# Posted By eileen | 4/13/07 8:45 AM
That's an odd one Eileen. I have a floppy drive on both of my systems, both of which are backed up via Carbonite, but I've never had this happen. My *hard drives* will hum during the first initial backup, but that's to be expected since it's backing up that data. Dumb question, but do you have a disk in the drive?
# Posted By Brian | 4/13/07 12:54 PM
>> my floppy drive also goes on and off all day and night. the green light comes on for a few seconds at a time,

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.
# Posted By Bob | 4/15/07 8:02 PM
It has been a disaster for me. My hard drive crashed, and I counted on Carbonite to restore my files -- it took 4 days and countless emails to get the system to work. It is a great tool for backing up your files, but don't count on being able to restore them. All in all, it sucks.
# Posted By George Galamba | 5/1/07 11:36 PM
I had no problems when I moved computers and pulled my backups from Carbonite. But in my opinion, even if it takes 4 days to get your files back, that's still easily worth $5 a month.
# Posted By Brian | 5/2/07 12:14 AM
All of these emails are pretty fascinating, because I'm having all sorts of problems discussed here: After installing Carbonite three days ago, my computer started to randomly freeze and refuse to shut down, the floppy drive randomly has been going on and off, and, basically, the machine has been having a s***fit. I'm uninstalling ASAP.
# Posted By ted | 5/15/07 11:39 AM
My floppy drive also is clicking repeatedly. I have not designated any files on it for backup.
# Posted By cbc | 6/6/07 3:58 PM
What a piece of crap Carbonite is. After paying for the service for a year I changed OS from XP to Vista. After about 8 emails to Carbonite I finally gave the files up as lost. What a wasted 50 dollars that was.
Now I am having a nightmare trying to delete Carbonite from my computer.
# Posted By Ben Simmons | 6/26/07 7:24 PM
Uh, Carbonite works fine with Vista. A friend just lost his entire hard drive so he got a new PC with Vista and pulled all his files down from Carbonite. As far as uninstalling, you just go to your Add/Remove Programs and remove it. Not sure what the problem is and you don't give any details in your comment so I'm afriad I don't have much to add. Good luck.
# Posted By Brian | 6/26/07 8:02 PM
Carbonite will not restore my 8690 MB backed-up data Several E-Mails to them have not resolved the problem. I have a new Hard drive installed.
Very disappointed !
# Posted By Eric Kahn | 6/28/07 8:52 AM
I've been using Carbonite for about a year and it has generally worked well, except that it won't automatically backup ZIP & EXE files. I have a lot of project data archived in zips as well as code that has DLLs & EXE files, and none of those get backed up. I email tech support and they said I could manually select those to back up but that defeats the purpose of an automatic system. I asked if there was a way to run a script to set certain files to backup and got no response.

Anyone have any suggestions or alternatives to Carbonite?
# Posted By Dan | 7/7/07 8:25 PM
After collecting 50 bucks from me and fighting their non existent tech service for two months I finally gave up. I could not work it out by email and they refused to call me or give me a number to call them!
LESSON LEARNED!!!
# Posted By Ben Simmons | 7/8/07 3:50 PM
Carbonite's been ok for me. I'm running under Vista x64, and when I had issues with Vista support earlier in the year had a lot of attention/quick email responses from carbonite.

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...
# Posted By Nigel Jones | 7/8/07 5:12 PM
@Dan: not sure what you mean. I have tons of zip files backed up and I didn't have to do anything manually to make that happen. There are definitely alternatives to Carbonite, but not any that will give you unlimited backup space for $4 a month.

@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!
# Posted By Brian | 7/8/07 5:41 PM
Hi Ben,

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
# Posted By Len (Carbonite) | 7/9/07 10:51 AM
I found the comments on here very informative about Carbonite after I had decided (unsuccesfully) to uninstall during the trial period. I received an error while attempting the uninstall using Contro Panel | Remove programs. The dialog box asked if I wanted to remove the program from the installed list - stupidly I answered Y! The solution was to log into the Carbonite account, re-install then un-install. This worked fine.

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
# Posted By Jeff Porter | 7/15/07 6:38 PM
Restore after Hard Disc Replacement
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
# Posted By Eric Kahn | 7/15/07 10:07 PM
The best part of carbonite is the near-seemless background operation of the backup - no scheduling. no manual actions, no massive hit on io.

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.
# Posted By Nigel Jones | 7/16/07 3:54 AM
Carbonite and other extreme low cost operators should generally be avoided unless you can honestly live with the possibility of not getting your data back. I examined their pricing and they definitively lose money at their price point (I'm in this business so I know the costs)

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
# Posted By Joe O'Donnell | 7/16/07 5:02 PM
Joe, I think you're missing the point that this costs $4 a month. I appreciate your opinion, but I disagree. I think companies like this can indeed make money. Storage space is unbelievably cheap. People are only uploading at cable modem upload speed the vast majority of the time. They can charge $4 a month precisely because they DON'T have a call center.

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.
# Posted By Brian | 7/16/07 5:32 PM
They are able to afford this because memory costs
$0.15/year/GB and average customer uses abot 10 to 15GB
of memory.
# Posted By ramdas | 7/16/07 5:39 PM
@Joe,

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
# Posted By John Wilker | 7/16/07 5:44 PM
Yes, I was thinking more about business customers, so you are correct that for consumers this can be acceptable.

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.
# Posted By Joe O'Donnell | 7/16/07 5:55 PM
They definitely aren't archiving onto tape since I can view what I have backed up on their storage servers at any time from Windows Explorer and restore any or all of it at any time.
# Posted By Brian | 7/16/07 6:02 PM
I'm Carbonite's CEO. With any "all you can eat" pricing scheme, you're going to lose money on a small percentage of your users. And it's true that if you were only backing up a few thousand users, you would probably lose money. But at our scale (petabytes of storage) the storage costs get to be incredibly cheap, even the high-reliability RAIDed disk arrays that we use. And the servers become a very small part of the cost. The economics of a business like Carbonite are quite compelling, enough so that we had no trouble raising $22M in venture capital. And VCs scrub the numbers pretty thoroughly.

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.
# Posted By David Friend | 7/16/07 11:07 PM
David - a thought. How about setting up a community support forum on the Carbonite site?

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.
# Posted By Nigel Jones | 7/17/07 3:26 AM
I have been using Carbonite for 6 weeks and have 48GB of files stored with them. I back my server up to my PC and use Carbonite to back up my PC, so I have 2 copies of my files.

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
# Posted By Alan Howlett | 8/17/07 9:45 AM
There's no problem with Carbonite backing up your data. BUT!!! when you try to restore your files and pictures, thats when it screws up. I lost a lot of pictures. I also have Paradox, after restoring files I couldn't open any files in paradox. Kept say "file being used by another source, can not open". PLEASE beware! sounds good in the beginning, until you need to restore..
# Posted By Don | 8/17/07 5:02 PM
I know people who restored their entire backups with no problem.
# Posted By Brian Kotek | 8/17/07 5:18 PM
I restored 20Gb+ with no problem apart from it being a little slow (less than my raw bandwidth.. I was only getting ~ 1mbps)
# Posted By Nigel Jones | 8/17/07 5:22 PM
When I switched to Vista and found out that Carbonite doesn't work on Vista so it froze up and my DVD ROM. Now I can not get rid of it. It looks like I will have to reinstall windows. Is there another way?
# Posted By Harold Odom | 9/7/07 11:42 PM
Uh, Carbonite runs fine on Vista. What are you talking about?
# Posted By Brian Kotek | 9/7/07 11:46 PM
Please log in to www.carbonite.com/manage and reinstall Carbonite now that you're running Vista. You may have upgraded to Vista while still running an older (pre-Vista) version of Carbonite.
# Posted By Len (Carbonite) | 9/8/07 11:41 AM
v 3 of carbonite came out recently, and works very smoothly under vista. Non intrusive and just works.

I've had no problems with backup or restore - in fact basically I need do very little, carbonite's just there plugging away!
# Posted By Nigel Jones | 9/8/07 12:26 PM
Hey everyone, great blog, and I'm finding all these posts very informative.

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!
# Posted By Eric | 9/12/07 1:06 PM
Hi
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
# Posted By Nick | 9/14/07 5:09 AM
When you restore with Carbonite you get a choice to select what to restore ie by directory, so as long as you know where your email files are you should be fine.

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.....
# Posted By Nigel Jones | 9/14/07 5:59 AM
Can anyone see any drawbacks to subscribing to two of these services at the same time (say, Carbonite and IDrive-E)? Belt and braces, so to speak.
# Posted By Margaret | 9/17/07 5:22 AM
I am in the process of doing the initial backup to Carbonite. I use XP Pro.
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
# Posted By Gene | 9/18/07 8:45 AM
Hi all
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
# Posted By Nick | 9/18/07 11:12 AM
This is why you should always keep your laptop password protected. Before they can get to your data, they have to get past your login. Which is far from impossible if they are holding the actual laptop, but is still difficult enough that you should have time to do something in response to the loss of your laptop.
# Posted By Brian Kotek | 9/18/07 11:16 AM
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
# Posted By Gene Quinn | 9/18/07 4:05 PM
Dare I say it
Higene
how do I set a hard disk password?
sony vaio laptop with dual core, about 1 year old - running XP

cheers
Nick
# Posted By Nick | 9/18/07 4:13 PM
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
# Posted By Gene | 9/18/07 9:25 PM
Hi 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
# Posted By Nick | 9/19/07 12:16 AM
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
# Posted By Gene | 9/19/07 10:45 AM
Great post that has attracted some very useful comments about online backup.

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.
# Posted By James Allen | 9/22/07 10:31 AM
Hello, I just have one question before I purchase Carbonite. I have a NAS server (Network Attached Storage) running Raid 5. I just want to be double safe and have an online backup of 100+gigs of info that is on the NAS. Will I be able to back up what is on the NAS to Carbonite just one time? I basically just want an online storage of these files and not have carbonite wanting to check to see if these files have changed or what not? Just a one time backup that is held at carbonite. Is that possible? If not then I know I can copy the files to my PC and have carbonite back it up, but then if I delete the files from my PC will they be deleted from carbonite also?

Thanks for the help.
# Posted By Punter | 9/22/07 12:11 PM
No, Punter. I'm pretty sure Carbonite won't back up a NAS.
# Posted By Brian Kotek | 9/22/07 12:26 PM
Hi
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
# Posted By Nick | 9/22/07 6:22 PM
I think if Carbonite are not careful they're going to loose out here.

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...
# Posted By Nigel Jones | 9/22/07 6:55 PM
Hi
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
# Posted By Nick | 9/23/07 5:43 AM
Interesting Nick. None of this takes away the general point about carbonite+NAS.

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.
# Posted By Nigel Jones | 9/23/07 7:34 AM
The real issue is that there is no way Carbonite can support NAS devices and still remain profitable. Even though they give you unlimited space, I would speculate that the average user doesn't have more than 5-10 gigs backed up. If they start supporting NAS devices, now they're looking at 100+ gigs per person. There's just no way they can support that at $4 a month. However, they may well add another option that supports NAS for a higher monthly fee.
# Posted By Brian Kotek | 9/23/07 4:42 PM
I think it's a bit silly to expect Carbonite or Mozy or any of the other solutions, to support NAS.

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.
# Posted By John Wilker | 9/23/07 5:29 PM
I have been using Carbonite for a few months now. Seemed to work great, but when I tried to transfer the account to a new pc I got an error: "Registration failed due to an unexpected error". That had me freaked for a while. My e-mails to Carbonite went unanswered for a month. My fault though, my spam filter was to agreesive. I looked up their phone number in Boston 617-587-1100 and called and they were able to help. Turns out that my Kaspersky antivirus was blocking Carbonite. The girl said it was a known problem. Remove Kaspersky and shut off the Windows firewall when setting up Carbonite.
# Posted By unclemeat | 10/19/07 10:32 AM
It sounds as if Carbonite is going to cost me around $200/yr for the 4 computers I use at home (all XP home or pro). Is there some way I can utilize their being wirelessly networked via a dsl router, so as to limit my subscription costs? I have to budget carefully.
# Posted By ABUAMY | 10/23/07 3:00 PM
No way to do that. You have to have a subscription for Carbonite for each system that is being backed up.
# Posted By Brian | 10/24/07 12:34 AM
I used to think the carbonite service was very good. It works well backing up and being able to restore individual files. However last week I lost my hard disk and had to replace it. I restored the OS then went to restore my files via carbonite in its recovery mode. However I was shocked to find it reckoned my backup drive was empty when it should have over 30GB of data in it. I thought okay maybe carbonite need to change something at their end to sync my new hard disk to my account so I duly contacted tech support. That was six days ago now. I have sent daily emails but have not had any communication from them at all which I think is shocking. Fingers crossed they will come back to me soon but my recommendation is for everyone considering this service do not make it your only form of backup.
# Posted By Adrian Champ | 10/24/07 4:03 AM
Plus 200 while not cheap isn't too bad if you can be a little more worry free about your data.
# Posted By John W | 10/24/07 10:32 AM
A friend of mind suffered in a similar way to Adrian Champ. He signed up for Carbonite, and the service appeared to be working and gave him "Status 100%" messages. When his hard drive failed and he could not restore his data, he was told that he had made an error in his email address when signing up, and therefore "the activation code you purchased was not applied to your old trial with your data on it so it was not backing up your computer". In other words, he paid for back up which he did not get, even though the status screen told him everything was OK. I am now seriously worried about my own data, and will not be renewing my Carbonite subscription.
# Posted By Margaret | 10/24/07 12:13 PM
> However I was shocked to find it reckoned my backup drive was empty ...
> ... I duly contacted tech support. That was six days ago now.

This is a deeply distressing story. Please post the follow-up, if any.
# Posted By Fred Hapgood | 10/24/07 1:49 PM
Just thought I would provide an update to my story. I managed to get thru to carbonite in the end. The VP of customer support actually called me personally from the states to try and address my problems. They have provided me with a fix which has allowed me to see my backup files. Strangely the mail\files they sent me do not appear in my gmail account (or spam folder) but do arrive in hotmail and some other email accounts. So their customer support may well have tried contacting me with the fix earlier. (Don't know why gmail would have a problem with their zipped fix file!!). The fix file was a breeze to install and my backup drive contains all the files it should.

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.
# Posted By Adrian Champ | 10/25/07 1:30 AM
Adrian - I had the same problem getting e-mail from Carbonite through my gmail account. Gmail will not let you send or receive zip files so that might have been part of the problem for you. Gmail itself may be the problem and I use my hotmail account for Carbonite.

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.
# Posted By unclemeat | 10/26/07 9:18 PM
Adrian,

*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...
# Posted By The Informer | 10/27/07 12:34 PM
I highly doubt that any lawsuit would carry any weight. First, they have a full disclaimer in the terms of use that limits their liability (just as every other online backup does, or for that matter any piece of software you've probably ever used). Second, proving that this is their fault would be extremely difficult because so many things are involved: Did the user actually have it set up correctly? Can they "prove" that the backup icon misled them? Did problems during transmission of the data across the public internet contribute to the issue? I'm not saying that Adrian did anything wrong, I'm just saying that proving something to the point where it would override the liability limitation would be nearly impossible. Remember, Carbonite is a safety net, not a guaranteed backup system. This is $5 a month! Any of the online backup providers give you a very high probability of being able to get your data back, but by no means is this 100% guaranteed. Nothing is 100% in this world, and if you want to get very close to that, you'd need to do full drive images to your own RAID drive and then keep swapped hard drives offsite in a safe deposit box.

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.
# Posted By Brian Kotek | 10/27/07 1:32 PM
By mistake I clicked "Don't backup files of this type" for a picture dataset which resulted in the immediate removal of all my picture files from my backup. If you delete a file from Carbonite then it remains on the server for 30 days (so I am told) but if you delete the file type everything is gone.

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!
# Posted By ted | 10/28/07 7:36 PM
All, Just thought I would give a further update to my earlier problems. I have been working with Carbonites VP of customer support and a very helpful technical support person and the vast majority of data has now been restored ( the last bit is still downloading as we speak ~ turns out I had over 39GB of data backed up online - ouch)

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.
# Posted By Adrian Champ | 10/30/07 11:36 AM
I've a similar problem to Ted's: I clicked on don't backup this file type instead of don't backup this file and now all my TIFF files seem to have disappeared from the server. I notified them on Saturday or Sunday so they probably haven't looked at my email yet (Tuesday evening) but in the meantime I've purchased a 500gb disk so that I can make multiple backups of my data. Backing up to a hard disk is fine but I prefer to have Carbonite working in the background looking after things for me.

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.
# Posted By Rod | 10/30/07 6:48 PM
I agree that it probably shouldn't delete the files immediately off the server (even though, basically, that's what you're telling it to do).

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.
# Posted By Brian Kotek | 10/30/07 7:16 PM
Slight aside -- but if you have data on your machine that you're worried about if it got into the wrong hands then you need to encrypt that data using perhaps one of the new "full disk encryption" hard disks or a software solution such as BitLocker provided with Vista. At a minimum set a hard disk password if you can.

Login passwords are trivial to get around with physical access to the machine.