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Carbonite Review
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Company Overview
Lowest Price
$59/Year
Storage Space
Unlimited
Free Trial
Yes - 15 Day
Free Plan
No
Single Computer Plans
Yes
Multi Computer Plans
Yes
Business Plans
Yes
Plans Offered
Year Established
2005
Backup Features
Max File Size
4GB
Scheduler
No
Versioning / Snapshot
Yes
Browse Online Files
Yes
Incremental Backup
No
Bandwidth Throttle
Yes
Idle Backup
Yes
Resumes After Interruption
Yes
Web/Mobile/Remote Access
Web Access
Yes
Mobile Phone Access
Yes
FTP Access
No
Sharing
Folder / File Sharing
Yes
Photo Album Sharing
No
Send Large Files
No
Restore To Any Computer
Yes
Security
SSL Secure Transfer
Yes
Data Encryption
Yes
Geo-Redundant Storage
Yes
User Generated Encryption Key
Yes
Summary:
Carbonite is one of the most well known and advertised online backup service available. With online backup being the only service they offer, they have put great effort in making their service simple to use with unlimited space for home computer users and businesses.
Once a computer is securely backed up to Carbonite, files can be securely accessed from any computer with online access and from any smart phone with Carbonite's free mobile app. File restoration and recovery is simple with Carbonite's automated Restore Manager.
Carbonite Plans and Pricing:
- Home and Home Office Plans
- Home: $59/yr for 1 computer, Windows and Mac, unlimited backup
- HomePlus: $99/yr for 1 computer, Windows only, unlimited backup with external hard drive backup
- HomePremier: $149/yr for 1 computer, Windows only, unlimited backup with courier recovery service
- Small Business Plans
- Business: $229/yr includes 250GB backup storage space
- BusinessPremier: $599/yr includes 500GB bakcup storage space with Microsoft Windows servers support
- 50GB and 100 GB add on storage packs can be purchased for $46/yr to $89/yr
Company Profile:
Cartonite's corporate headquarters is located in Boston, MA and was founded by David Friend and Jeff Flowers. Both had personal experience with family members loosing important computer data which is why they launched Carbonite in 2005. Their goal was to provide a simple backup service that was also affordable.
Having earned several awards over the years, Carbonite has over 200 employees and has backed up nearly 200 billion files and recovered over 7 billion files. Carbonite operates 2 data centers in Boston and Somerville, MA and a customer support center in Lewiston, ME.
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Editor review
1 review
Good Service with Limited Features
Overall rating
8.2
Ease of Use
9.0
Features
7.0
Space / Price
8.0
Customer Support
8.0
Security
9.0
They are a pretty good company but the options are not the best.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Well established company
More Expensive plans will ship you your data
More Expensive plans will ship you your data
Cons
Products and features are a little limited
Not all plans work with Macs
Not all plans work with Macs
SJ
Steven Johnson
User reviews
10 reviews
Overall rating
3.9
Ease of Use
3.7(10)
Features
2.7(10)
Space / Price
5.3(10)
Customer Support
3.0(10)
Security
4.6(10)
Carbonite is horrible
Overall rating
1.2
Ease of Use
1.0
Features
2.0
Space / Price
1.0
Customer Support
1.0
Security
1.0
Carbonite is horrible. First, the backups are really slow. As in, it took over 2 months to backup the first 100GB. When I tried to trim the backup set (about 250GB total), the Mac client app kept crashing, and I couldn't use it to select fewer files. When I tried to get support to figure out why it was crashing, they told me it was my fault that I had updated to 10.9. And then when I asked for a refund of my year subscription because of the horrible experience, they told me no.
Try a different vendor. Stay away.
Try a different vendor. Stay away.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Slick advertising...
Cons
Slow.
Mac client crashes continuously.
Very Slow.
Horrible customer support.
Slow, as in 2 months to back up 100GB.
Really, horribly, uselessly slow.
Mac client crashes continuously.
Very Slow.
Horrible customer support.
Slow, as in 2 months to back up 100GB.
Really, horribly, uselessly slow.
BC
Brent Chartrand
Waiting Forever
Overall rating
5.1
Ease of Use
0.5
Features
2.0
Space / Price
7.5
Customer Support
7.5
Security
8.0
My ratings of Features and Security above are just guesses at this point.
Pros and Cons
Pros
It's not that expensive, and their support team tries its best to help.
Cons
Maybe because Carbonite is bad with Macs, but it is taking me FOREVER to get backed up. Two MONTHS in and C is still averaging about one file per HOUR. Unacceptable. If my eventual recovery takes this long, I want a refund.
KP
Kirk Peffers
Poor Apple support
Overall rating
4.9
Ease of Use
7.5
Features
2.5
Space / Price
6.0
Customer Support
1.5
Security
7.0
If you switch from a PC to a Mac, don't expect to be able to download your backup. It won't work. AND Carbonite won't give you any money back because you are having to switch services. Too bad for you. SO if there is a chance you may switch platforms in the future, go somewhere else for your backup needs.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Easy to set up. Easy to see what has been backed up which gives you peace of mind
Cons
Doesn't fully support Apple Mac.
FC
Fred Cludius
Terrible service for large backups!
Overall rating
5.8
Ease of Use
6.0
Features
1.0
Space / Price
8.5
Customer Support
6.5
Security
7.0
Do NOT use for more than about 5GB of backup unless you have a month or two to get your files back from them!!!!!
Pros and Cons
Pros
It easy to get going with the software and also relatively easy to retrieve a single file or two.
Cons
Long waits for customer service and an almost USELESS restore feature. If your connection to their server is PERFECT, it can still only restore about 2.5GB per day (which never happens by the way). I have been restoring a folder of pictures (about 198 GB) for almost a month now, Still have over 30,000 files to go! Ridiculous, read the fine print this is NOT a good solution for backing up your entire machine.
J
jbofga
Worse than a sharp stick in the eye
Overall rating
1.0
Ease of Use
1.0
Features
1.0
Space / Price
1.0
Customer Support
1.0
Security
1.0
11 days to restore 300GB after a disk crash.
Disk Image from local USB drive takes more than 8 hours.
Phase I restore took 7+ days.
Phase II restore took another 4 days.
As near as I can tell, I only needed about 750 files from the online server that were newer than the files on the mirror image.
Carbonite seems to have processed the whole online data base and build some sort of structure on my hard drive in phase I.
Carbone then spent the next 4 days actually restoring those 750 into my local directory where they belong.
Tech support (level I and level II) were polite but essentially useless.
Their time estimates were off by a factor of 10.
I cannot imagine anyone continuing to use this company once they experience a restore event!
Disk Image from local USB drive takes more than 8 hours.
Phase I restore took 7+ days.
Phase II restore took another 4 days.
As near as I can tell, I only needed about 750 files from the online server that were newer than the files on the mirror image.
Carbonite seems to have processed the whole online data base and build some sort of structure on my hard drive in phase I.
Carbone then spent the next 4 days actually restoring those 750 into my local directory where they belong.
Tech support (level I and level II) were polite but essentially useless.
Their time estimates were off by a factor of 10.
I cannot imagine anyone continuing to use this company once they experience a restore event!
P
Paco
There Are MUCH Better Options!!!
Overall rating
1.7
Ease of Use
1.0
Features
1.0
Space / Price
3.0
Customer Support
0.5
Security
3.0
After having Carbonite on 3 computers for years I finally needed there service.... I lost all my priceless pictures. I did not panic though... I had Carbonite. It took TWO MONTHS and three 3 hour tech support calls to get my pictures back!!! The worst experience that I have ever had dealing with ANY company. Very deceptive practices. The restore of my pictures was painfully slow, so I called tech support... they said it was my internet connection speed. I called my internet provider and doubled my speed... That resulted in NO change in restore speed. I came to the end of my one year subscription (after 1.75 months of trying to restore my pictures) and even though I did not want to renew my subscription, I FORCED to in order to continue my restore and get my pictures back. I SWEAR, as soon as I hit the renew button and they charged me for another year the restore speed quadrupled!!!... The remainder (about a third of the total restore) finished in 1.5 days... ONE and a half days!!!!... all that they wanted was more of my money!!! Look at their refund policy... NO REFUNDS!!! Please do not give them your business!!!
K
KBryant
Your data is not worth losing, skip Carbonite
Overall rating
1.4
Ease of Use
2.5
Features
0.5
Space / Price
3.0
Customer Support
0.5
Security
0.5
The back ups looked fine until a restore was needed, then I learned that I had almost no data to recover. Never received any alerts. Customer service seems to be aware of this situation and just wastes your time.
MM
Miguel Mendoza
Amazing Customer Support
Overall rating
9.4
Ease of Use
8.5
Features
8.5
Space / Price
10.0
Customer Support
10.0
Security
10.0
I had a problem with my computer and it was not talking to Carbonite so I called the tech support and James not only fixed the issue remotely he also went through my system to help get rid of an annoying pop up that I could not get rid of. He also sat on the phone with me while I hooked up a new external hard drive and set up the mirror image so that I would have no issues if something happened to my computer. He also double checked all my videos to make sure they were being saved correctly. This phone call alone and how incredibly nice James was has made me a Carbonite customer for life!
S
Sunshine
Horrible service
Overall rating
1.4
Ease of Use
0.5
Features
0.5
Space / Price
5.0
Customer Support
0.5
Security
0.5
Right now I am on my 5th attempt to get real support from Carbonite-what a joke. Emails not returned, chat can't help, long hold on phone and I get rushed off the phone. Don't buy Carbonite!
JO
jon owens
Upload slow and so is tech response
Overall rating
6.6
Ease of Use
8.0
Features
8.0
Space / Price
8.0
Customer Support
1.0
Security
8.0
Just signed up, have been uploading for two weeks and still at 0%. Sent message to tech support two days ago. Still waiting.
L
Leigh