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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@James, sorry to hear of your Mozy sorrows…Nothing worse than thinking you’ve got a good backup system & then realizing it’s not. (Which I guess is another reason I’m thinking I may continue to use Jungle Disk in conjunction with Carbonite in conjunction with the onsite backups to other physical disks.) I keep telling my husband I don’t know if I’m getting totally whack when it comes to security (I’ve also begun using TrueCrypt on disks that have sensitive info) & backup or what.
But I’m a long time power user and the thought of a total computer loss (IE flood, fire, theft) with no good backup is scary. HOPEFULLY, the Mozy crew will be able to get their act together & get a good backup to you soon.
@Susie I hope so too. I’m in constant communication with a senior support person at Mozy. I was just told that before the backup disk went out it got plugged into a Mac and a Windows machine and the partition came up on both. I have to say I’m really disgusted by this whole experience. I was starting to feel better after the higher ups got involved but now that doesn’t seem to make a difference I’m feeling anxious about my data again.
@Dave Friend: Absolutely, your approach to backing up large files makes perfect sense! JD says they do block level updates, but for some reason, I do get the WDWF message on a regular basis. Per this fairly recent post in the JD forum, (not posted by me, but the exact scenario I experience), it’s obvious that as of 7/9/8, JD does not play nice with big files: http://forum.jungledisk.com/viewtopic.php?t=16061&highlight=delayed+write+failure
I do not use JD’s backup program. I forget why, but IIRC, earlier versions did not allow multiple backup sets, although they do now. So I have been using SyncBack to do nightly/weekly/monthly scheduled backups to the JD drive. Unfortunately, when you experience the WDWF error, Syncback shows the backup worked hunky, dory fine. (I think b/c as far as Syncback is concerned, everything went to the cache just fine.) But then JD generates the WDWF errors & no, the file is NOT backed up. I’ve been having to run a compare program comparing my originals to what’s on the JD virtual drive. I suppose it’s worth it to insure I have a good backup…but overall, what a waste of time & effort. A backup program (like any other program) should just work.
So far, I’m liking Carbonite. I do want to see how it goes once all the files are backed up & the dailies go.
Regarding your earlier question about “unlimited” and the guy with a gazillion gigs…speaking for myself only…If I were to have that much data backed up, I wouldn’t mind paying more. If it gets to the point where you need to make some changes, perhaps a pricing similar to Amazon’s S3 service – pay for what you use. I don’t mind paying for my offsite backups, within reason. I work from home & have alot of work related info, personal business info, personal fun stuff, medical info for my family, backups of my PDA, genealogy info, photos & (since I’m going as paperless as possible) alot of scans of papers, taxes, bills, documents, warranties, etc. But since I pay for this myself, it must be a “reasonable” amount for a power home user.
Sorry to be so long winded & thank you for your time.
Susie
@Dave Friend: Oh, forgot to mention, I do like the simplicity of Carbonite. With ALL my prior online backup systems, I would need to go into the program & see what was being backed up, folder by folder. It’s SO much easier to use Explorer & see those dots!
Susie, your comment about encrypting your disk touches a nerve with me. Check this out:
As reported by By Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post Staff Writer, on Friday, August 1, 2008, “Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed. An increasing number of international travelers have reported that their laptops, cellphones and other digital devices had been taken — for months, in at least one case — and their contents examined. The policies state that officers may “detain” laptops “for a reasonable period of time” to “review and analyze information.” This may take place “absent individualized suspicion.”
The policies cover “any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form,” including hard drives, flash drives, cellphones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. ”
So I don’t think you’re “whack” at all. It’s a real concern these days. Luckily it still takes a court order to get your backups, and even then they are 100% encrypted, and good luck to them trying to break a 1024-bit key.
Dave Friend, CEO
Carbonite, Inc.
Carbonite stopped working a couple of weeks ago (red/yellow logo). “Customer Service” suggested a reinstall which failed numerous times. Then “CS” suggested the problem was Adaware, which I removed. Still had the same problem. Carnonite fails to reinstall, (error message saying server must be down) but I get an email message saying it has been reinstalled. Now “CS” says the problem must be McAfee and wants me to uninstall it. No way am I doing that. If McAfee is conflicting with Carbonite there would be a million computers with the same issue. What the @#$%@@*! is going on?
@Snaps – Sorry to hear that you’re having trouble with Carbonite. Security software can sometimes interfere with any program that uses your network and Internet connection as heavily as Carbonite does. We do our best to stay in touch with the manufacturers of security software to stay on their “White Lists” so that this isn’t a problem for our customers, but any modification to your security software settings can override the white lists and cause a problem.
In most cases, you can just go into the Exceptions settings for your security software and add carboniteservice.exe, carboniteui.exe, and carbonitesetup.exe – if your security software needs to know which ports to use, enable bidirectional access on ports 25 (SMTP), 53 (DNS), 80 (HTTP), and 443 (SSL).
There are times when adding these exceptions doesn’t resolve the issue for the installer – and in those times the simplest and quickest solution is to temporarily uninstall the security software, complete your installation of Carbonite, and then reinstall your security software. This has the added benefit for many security programs of causing them to regenerate the prompts that ask you whether to “allow” a program like Carbonite to use the Internet.
If you’re still having trouble, please send a note to customersupport @ carbonite.com with “ATTN: LEN” in the subject line and I’ll make sure we get your issue resolved quickly.
Sincerely,
Len Pallazola
Manager, Customer Service Systems
Carbonite, Inc.
I can’t find definite information on this so I thought I’d ask here
Does or doesn’t Carbonite erase files after 30 days if they are not on my hard drive? As in can I upload my files to Carbonite for storage from an external drive and chuck it?
thanks
I do wish Carbonite had a message board. I do think after X number of days, if you delete the file from your computer, that Carbonite deletes it as well. IOW, Carbonite functions more as a backup of your computer, rather than offsite storage.
I use Carbonite in conjunction with Jungle Disk, which functions more as offsite storage (as well as backup.)
@Susie – that’s exactly correct, 30 days.
@LJ – As Susie pointed out, Carbonite tries to match your computer (but gives you a thirty-day window to realize if you’ve deleted a file by mistake and need it back). So you wouldn’t be able to upload files for storage and then remove your local copies.
Sincerely,
Len Pallazola
Manager, Customer Service Systems
Carbonite, Inc.
I install Carbonite two weeks ago and ever since I keep losing my internet connection. It always happens during a backup. I have to unplug my cable modem for a minute to get connection back. I disabled Carbonite for two days and never lost my connection until I enabled it. Questions or solutions?
I’ve tried a significant restore from Mozy on my Mac now (I’d restored the occasional chunk of files in the past, mostly to test it, all on my PCs) and was really impressed: the 13 Gb restore streamed in from the servers at a few hundred kbyte/sec until the job was … well, nearly finished. Until all but two files had been restored, according to the error message. Which files? No idea: neither the error message nor the log files gave any indication. *headdesk*
I suppose it’s marginally better than actually failing silently – but only marginally. I’m an old fashioned kind of guy: I think that restoring files should actually, you know, restore those files, not some subset thereof. I might settle for *knowing* which files have been omitted – but being told the restore has bits missing, without knowing which?!
@Richard – your router or cable modem may be having trouble buffering all of the network traffic used by Carbonite during a backup operation. You could right-click your Carbonite tray icon and select “Low Priority” to slow down Carbonite so that it puts less stress on your devices, but I really recommend checking the devices for problems. The behavior you’re describing is not a common occurrence and likely indicates either a configuration problem or mechanical problem with either your router or cable modem.
I hope this info helps.
Sincerely,
Len Pallazola
Manager, Customer Service Systems
Carbonite, Inc.
thanks for answering, and that’s unfortunate then… i was hoping to make Carbonite my 2nd backup
w0uld be nice to have a permanent storage option
@LJ…well, it sounds like it would even better to fix the problem, since I agree with Len that it sounds like a problem with your router or modem.
FWIW, I’ve found I’ve been able to backup files from my USB drives by using one of two methods. One drive has a TrueCrypt container on it & when the TC container is mounted, Carbonite will back up the files. The other drive is not encrypted, but I mounted it as a folder & that works too.
I have to say, I am completey annoyed with Carbonite. I have been singing it’s praises to all of my colleagues for months now and the one time I need it, I have no clue what’s going on??? My computer crashed and I am trying to restore the .pst file. It’s really the main reason I use carbonite. Once I set up the service I even contacted customer support to see if I had “marked” it correctly for download. I did, so I thought I was safe.
I see it there, actually many different back-ups but after hours of trying to restore it, it says 100% restored but it’s not where to be found.
HOW LONG SHOULD THIS TAKE???? On Friday I was prepared to spend the $20 to talk to a customer service rep but after waiting on hold for over thirty minutes, I said forget it. Then I went through two different chat sessions and after spending time there was told to “be patient”, it’s restoring. Now it is Sunday….. everything is restored that I need except the most import this .pst file. Where is it?
I sent customer service an email, Len Pallazola (from this forum) and email…. still zip, nada, no answer. Carbonite really needs to step it up with customer service. To not have access to CS 24 hours for such a valid and important service is very unacceptable to me. I am so irrirated. This is important data and I just don’t understand why you can reach a person to solve this issue.
Carbonite should realize that when their customers are contacting them for service typically they are frantic and scared because if they are contacting them, probably their computer has just crashed. I don’t get it? You would think that this type of service would be around 24/7 considering the nature of the business.
If Carbonite cannot afford this then perhaps set up a user forum so the users can help each other.
In the mean time, I would just like my .pst files restored.
Jamey,
I’m sorry I didn’t notice the message you sent to my attention via customer support; your message was received at about 11pm our time. I’ve reviewed your log files and see that your .pst file has started to restore (at the time the log files were generated on Friday about 9pm EST), but had not yet finished restoring. If it helps, the path to the file was C:\Documents and Settings\Jamey\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\outlook.pst – but it’s a fairly large file so it could take a while. Your log file shows that you selected to restore the file several times, both to its original location and to your desktop. (I didn’t check to see whether you selected other locations besides those two, but you may find multiple copies once the restore completes if you selected multiple destinations.)
Sincerely,
Len Pallazola
Manaager, Customer Service Systems
Carbonite, Inc.
http://www.carbonite.com
Thanks Len. You guys should put forums like this (although I know it’s a blog and comments) on your site so that customers know there is someone there. It’s really scary to have your computer crash and no one to help you through it….. how long do you think it will take?
Jamey
Jamey, I just sent you an e-mail with some instructions on how to send me your log files. Once I’ve reviewed them I can give some better input on how far along the restore is.
We do have a commentable blog on our website (www.carbonite.com/blog) but like any blog, it’s not really the best method to communicate with customer support. I like the idea of adding support forums to our website and I’ll share that idea with our design team; it may be something we can add in the future.
Sincerely,
Len Pallazola
Manaager, Customer Service Systems
Carbonite, Inc.
http://www.carbonite.com
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