I have or should say had been a Carbonite user for almost an year but issues after issues finally got to me and the lack of new features that were long promised but never delivered forced me to start looking at the automated online backup again and I am so glad I did, as I’ve found Mozy. I’ve had numerous problems with Carbonite and their customer service was crappy. So I decided to give up on Carbonite even though I had already pre-paid for 2 years – I guess it’s better to lose $80.00 than all your data.
Mozy is similar to Carbonite in some regards but has a much richer feature set that makes it a better offering. Like Carbonite, Mozy installs a small client on your Windows XP/Vista or OS X desktop that runs in the background and backs up files over the Internet using your broadband connection. But that’s where the similarities end. Carbonite is a fairly bare-bones offering which may be ok for most novice users but Mozy offers several configuration options like creation of backup sets, file versions, access to your files via the web and many other features.
One of the best and most important feature that set Mozy and Carbonite apart is the fact that you can actually get your backed files back. Wow! What a concept – I know I know. When I first installed Carbonite, I did several test restores and they worked fine but when I had been backing up for several months and really need to restore something, Carbonite let me down. Mozy on the other hand has never done that. Another awesome feature of Mozy is that fact they don’t really throttle your bandwidth after you’ve uploaded 50 GB. Carbonite seems to limit upload bandwidth to about 2 GB a day and then throttle it down after you reach 50 GB. Mozy doesn’t seem to play any of those games and allows uploads that are supported by your bandwidth. On an average day, I think I was uploading about 5+ GB.
Another recent event that makes Mozy even more attractive to me is the purchase of Berkeley Data Systems, providers of Mozy online backup by EMC Corporation. As you probably know, EMC is the leader is the storage market and owns Documentum, VMWare, and RSA among other technology companies.
So if you are looking for a great, reliable and affordable backup solution for your home computer, you should check out Mozy.
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We just signed up for Carbonite, unfortunately we messed up the email upon originating the account. (our fault totally) We then tried the Carbonite support page, which led us to the on line CHAT.
This has to be worst support that I have ever seen in my life. Admitting that we goofed up, then Sonny P, asked us for the identifying information which I gave. Then was abruptly cut off from the Chat.
OK no problem, I found myself in another 15 min queue waiting. Then a pleasant Dale D. came on line and I explained the situation and that I was disconnected from Sonny. Dale kindly switched me back to Sonny P. this lasted about 30 seconds after explained who I was and that I just needed to get the account straightened out so we could do our back up, the again was cut off.
So, a third time I waited 10 more minutes to reconnected to Dale D. and I was a little short, and as soon as he realized who I was I pleaded not to chat with Sonny P again, but Dale decided to switch me over. After that I ended up in an open chat the indicated Sonny was listening, however never did reply. After 30 minutes of waiting and logging questions just looking to activate our account I ended the CHAT and called my credit card company to block the charge.
I don’t know how a company like this can even stay in business. This is probably the worst customer experience I have ever had. Don’t waste your money, data, or time. If you do pray to god, you never have a problem.
Jean – I am responsible for Carbonite customer service and apologize for your experience. I want to help make this right. Please reach out to me at jeffrey.robison (at) carbonite.com. I look forward to helping you. Jeff Robison, VP Carbonite Support
wow, I am so unhappy with Carbonite. I just canceled my Carbonite after they lost over ten gigs of data.. actually it was there but Carbonite changed the drive letter .. so to get it back I had to download over 80 gigs and start over again.. they have the WORST customer support ever.. bye bye Carbonite, I will start over with someone else.
I have been trying for days to match the original Carbonite upload speed but I am averaging less than 40 Kb…my Cox cable upload max is around 500Mb. how can I increase the Carbonite upload speed? I would prefer to stay with Carbonite but I will be looking for a faster product if the problem is not resolved.
I love Mozy so much I install it on all my clients computers, great backup solution!
Hi Dennis,
I would like to have a senior rep look into your issue for you. Please email us at sns@carbonite.com with a brief description of your problem so we can check into it and get back to you. – Jim Flynne, Carbonite Support
I’m hitting my one year with Carbonite and I just canceled because the back up is not the same as what’s on my computer. It looks like an older back up and it’s not automatically updating. I tried contacting the support folks but they couldn’t help me. They gave me a file to add to my C: drive but that didn’t work like they said it would. I’m now trying to figure out how to get Carbonite off my computer so I can to Mozy. What a pain in the butt, I hope Mozy is better.
With the amazing pricing/unlimited storage there has to be a catch. For Carbonite that catch is upload speed. Please note as of now (10/28/11) upload speeds are throttled back in this manner:
up to 35 GB storage = 2 mb/s
36-200 GB storage = 512 kb/s
over 200GB storage = 100 kb/s
In short, if you wanted to backup all the data on a 500gb harddrive the backup time would be approx 9 months. (This is not a typo. Nine months per a calculator that a Carbonite representative used to calculate it.)
I was ready to hit send on the 3-year subscription but called to clarify a few things. 1) If you backup a file on your machine and delete it, you will only have access to that file for 30 days on the backup. 2) The FAQ says that you can’t backup software. The tech confirmed that if you have a .zip file or a .rar of the software, that will be (or can be configured to) be backed up.
I would like to give credit where credit is due. I did have a great customer service rep on the phone within 5 minutes at noon on a weekday. He was very knowledgeable and helpful and took time to explain things even though I wasn’t a yet a customer. He said he couldn’t say anything about what is coming (regarding upload speeds) but suggested I check back in a week or two. Something seems to be cooking over there. I’ll be interested to see what it is.
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