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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Apparently Carbonite for the Mac is due “mid-2008″; I’m hoping that really does mean sometime soon (or that I can get into the beta!), since Mozy has now decided to ignore my file exclusions and try to back up my 30 Gb Parallels hard drive image. This, of course, means it’s now a week since my last Mozy backup with no certainty of ever completing another. Between that, the unexplained failure and the lack of reply from Mozy support, I’m about ready to jump ship somewhere.
James,
To sign up for the Carbonite Mac beta, send a note to beta@ carbonite.com with “MAC BETA” in the subject line and you’ll be added to the list. You should hear something from our beta team within a few days after your message is received. (Any other Mac users, feel free to do so also!)
Sincerely,
Len Pallazola
Manaager, Customer Service Systems
Carbonite, Inc.
http://www.carbonite.com
I signed up for Carbonite a week ago and suspected that they throttle the speeds. Then I found this blog entry. It looks to me like it's capped t about 2.5GB a day. I have 5mbps upstream. I was able to upload 1.5GB in the first four hours and at the end of 24 hrs it had uploaded 2.6 GB. Hard to believe they are not throttling.
Whats the point in having a backup service if you can't back things up fast enough.
Vinodh: There's no daily cap. I think what you're seeing is just the normal allocation of our bandwidth among the many computers that are trying to send data at the same time. Also, if you touch your keyboard or mouse, Carbonite slows down automatically in order to stay out of your way while you're working. If your computer is idle, it will back up faster. If you use your computer, the rate at which data is transferred will drop until you stop using it.
Dave Friend, CEO
I have discovered that Carbonite will not backup Microsoft Visual Source Safe (VSS) databases. I cannot get Carbonite to automatically backup files that VSS keeps creating with the ".a" extension. Apparently there are a number of files of a certain extension type that Carbonite will not automatically backup.
I have contacted Carbonite about this a number of times and they just keep responding that I should right click on the file to have it backed up. Of course you can always right click on a specific file and have it backed up, but to have to go into my VSS database everyday looking for files with ".a" extension that are not backed up and have them backed up manually is not a real backup system. Obviously they are not reading my email message.
THE MOST IMPORTANT ADVANTAGE MOZY HAS OVER Carbonite is it BACKS UP EXTERNAL DRIVES!!!
As long as the drives show up as "fixed" (they're listed as regular hard drives in My Computer rather than "external") they can be backed up.
And yeah the Carbonite restoration process is absolutely confusing, and I've used computers since the early '80s…took me a week to figure out how to get things back properly.
Holy crap, guys! What's so hard about restoring from Carbonite? You just open the Carbonite drive icon on the desktop, click on the file, folder, or drive you want to restore, and click "Restore." How the f*** could it be any easier? If you're backing up an external drive with Mozy, DON'T unplug the drive. I learned that the hard way. Otherwise, it works fine.
I am so glad I never Bought and Paid for the Carbonite service, I didn't like how my service Just stopped working… one day, after less than four weeks of use. I now know that trial accounts are treated differently than full service accounts, even through I was suppose to have One Whole Year, under the agreement I understood. I am letting everyone I know of my Dissatisfaction with Carbonite backup service. I will be using another backup Arrangement from now on, doubtful I will ever use Carbonite ever again, Again I will be telling my experiences with The Carbonite backup service, to anyone and everyone. Now I am having trouble removing the Carbonite from the PC in question, If I have to do a Full re-install of My Operating System, and programs, That will be also included, as part of my "sad tale", I will be talking about this, at our Computer Club meeting in about Three weeks. Just to let you know "Not A Happy Customer" Al
The last reply says I had a One Year Trial of Carbonite Online Backup. it came from a Tax Preparation software. I did not have to Pay any Money for the Carbonite online backup service. it was free for My use and even then I found had Many serious problems even on my PC, oh it seemed to run on Windows Vista, But I still am NOT a Happy Carbonite online backup Customer!
If only I had discovered your site before I loaded Carbonite. I went off the advice of that ass monkey Leo Laporte and now I have the Carbonite trojan.
I am always amazed by the anti-Carbonite posts. I have been using it on various computers – where one is always Vista and one XP, and before that both were XP – for several years now with no problems of note. Only once did backing-up stop. That was now a couple of years ago and after a couple of e-mails was resolved. Some sort of problem with an updated release of the app…apologies for my imprecision, it was a while ago and I am no expert.
Fine, have an opinion but some of these posts make me wonder how a person who is little better than a novice [me] can have no problems, yet those who purport to know what they are doing do.
Or is there some sort of vendetta going on? A friend uses Mozy but has no better nor worse time with it. It works fine for him.
I hasten to add that I have no relationship with either business and know nothing about them either.
Kmuzu, please don't go around spreading rumors. If you claim installing a valid/legal copy of Carbonite loads a trojan (which it doesn't), please cite (RELIABLE) sources such as McAfee, Norton, Sophros, etc.
ER…Sophos…
What people are saying about Carbonite's Customer noService is true. If readers don't believe it, buy it and try it and see for themselves! Then theycan feel screwed too! I've contacted them twice, to no avail, to ask why their product causes my WinXp machine to take an extra long time to complete the Boot-up process. It sort of hangs up for a good while, then moves on.
Hi Brotherman,
I'm sorry to hear that you had trouble getting an issue resolved. Please send me a note at Len.Pal @ carbonite.com with your contact information and the best time to get in touch, and I'll have one of our senior technical support agents reach out to you.
Sincerely,
Len Pallazola
Manager, Customer Service Systems
Carbonite, Inc.
I'm throttled after 20GB. Mozy it is and if they start to throttle then I'm done with them. With Mozy I just did 2GB in 30 mins on Fios with 25/15MB plan.
I wish Carbonite charged monthly because I would have $30+ more in my pocket because I would've pulled out. You will get 1 year out of me and that's it! F Carbonite…
I subscribed for the free trial version of Carbonite. My subscription ends in approximately one day and Carbonite has backed up only 31% of info. I email them about the issue and I never heard anything from them. They suck big.
Dear Carbonite Customer –
We have been upgrading our network and uploads have been slower than normal. Restore speeds were not affected by this upgrade and remain very fast. As of Friday, January 17, a new 5gbps inbound pipe is operational and addressing this limitation. A posting concerning this network upgrade has been on our web site for the past week.
Jeffrey Robison, VP
Carbonite Customer Service
I can't figure out how to uninstall the trial version of Carbonite. It's really slowed down my computer, and I can't live with it.
When I go to uninstall programs in the control panel, Carbonite isn't listed as a program there.
Carbonite's website tells you how to get rid of it. I'm free of it now. I can't tell you how much it bogged down my computer. I know other folks who use this and are happy, though. I guess they are "lighter" users than I am. I don't think it ever finished backing up my files, and that's what was slowing everything down. If you don't have so many files, you should be ok.
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