First I should say that I’m very biased. As an employee of Mozy, I’m already not a big fan of Carbonite. Apparently they just redesigned their website and for some reason decided it would be a good idea to put a headless man on the home page. (Okay, I know what the picture is really trying to depict but c’mon. The guy looks headless.)
Now that’s brilliant marketing. “Hey let’s show a picture of a guy who is teed off and tired of trying to get his computer to work on our new home page. Bonus points if the guy kind of looks like he has no head.”
If you want an online backup product that works, use Mozy Online Backup. It has better encryption, lets you choose exactly what files you want backed up, lets you set a backup schedule, and gives you control over how much bandwidth or memory it can use. Plus it’s backed by EMC, so you know it’ll be around for quite a long time.
45 responses so far ↓
Tim // January 29, 2008 at 3:42 PM |
I switched to Mozy after having problems with Carbonite. Mozy has worked like a charm for me.
Cecily // February 11, 2008 at 8:31 PM |
I like Mozy better than Carbonite.
Rod // February 22, 2008 at 8:04 PM |
I USED to like Carbonite until I actually needed it. I inadvertently copied an old file over a new one. I didn’t realize it until the next morning. I was so happy I had Carbonite until I realized that Carbonite backed up the file, thus overwriting the only good remaining copy.
I knew their new release offered “versions”, meaning you could get prior version os a file going back 90 days, so I installed the new version and hoped for the best. Well, it says there are 3 versions but will only let me download the latest. THE WORST PART is their support. They have set a new standard in aboslutely horrific service. I called 10 minutes after they opened, and after 2:15 on hold, I finally gave up. the next day i called immediately after they opened and held for 1:22 and finally got through to someone. He was professional, understood the problem, and said that they could go to their own backups and get a previous version. SWEET. Unfortunately, that was four days ago and I haven’t heard from them since…gee no big deal just a backup of my estimating software that I need every day, what the Fu*&ing hurry guys.
Now I have received three emails from them telling me to download the newest version and try to recover the file. I email back telling them I did that 3 days ago, and they respond by sending me instruction on how to download the latest version.
Great idea, ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC service. I could never recommend anyone use Carbonite.
Josh // March 3, 2008 at 2:15 PM |
Dude M0ZY sucks bad. Just Google for ‘M0ZY SUCKS’.. horror stories. I had the same problems. What a piece of crap.
I doubt Carbonite is any better.
Ryan // March 3, 2008 at 7:36 PM |
Josh, just curious. What did you run it on and how much did you try to back up? What happened?
(UPDATE: Never heard back from him.)
dontusecarbonite // June 11, 2008 at 9:31 PM |
try contacting carbonite’s customer support and you will be up a creek w/o a paddle. and if you need to call them (to wait on hold indefinitely), you’ll have to take off work since their customer service hours are 9-5.
Kelly // June 27, 2008 at 6:36 AM |
Downloading and installing Carbonite is easy; it’s the program and customer UNservice themselves that are absolutely pathetic and miserable.
I installed this product for my PC as I have a LOT of data to back up and I needed an offsite online backup that was affordable and had the space I needed. BIG mistake. The original backup of my data took almost 5 days. I’m okay with that because it was behind-the-scenes and there was no hurry. It was invisible to me. But FIVE days??????
However, now that I have actually suffered a hard drive failure and I need to restore my data (the whole entire point of purchasing this service) – EVERYTHING has changed.
First of all, the interface to Carbonite (ie: Craponite) is not overly user-friendly and you have no detailed way to see what is really restored and not restored or what phase the restoration is in. Oh sure, there’s a ‘Recovery Log’ that you can click – but it hasn’t changed status (currently at 52%) or updated information in DAYS. Even their customer non-support claimed it wasn’t always accurate… (then why have it?)
Also, I have been trying to restore my Outlook PST file for FOUR DAYS. Did you read that? ONE FILE = FOUR FULL DAYS AND COUNTING. It was only 1 Gig in size. Yes, that’s a large file, but NOT FOUR DAYS LARGE. Halfway through the first download, the file stopped downloading and I waited several hours before calling Carbonite hoping that it would restart and it was just their HORRIBLE restore speed. I was wrong. After calling their customer UNservice number and being on hold for 72 minutes (Yes, 1 hour and 12 minutes) I spoke with a rep. He was nice and I don’t blame him for the company’s poor service, but he said the problem was something on THEIR SERVERS that was a ‘random error’ he had never seen before. WTF!?!?! That made me feel good (NOT); a ‘random error’ on the servers of the company that I am paying to backup and safeguard MY data. He had me go into my registry and make changes so that THEIR system would ignore the error and keep restoring… Are you kidding me???? I had to modify MY registry so THEIR system would work?
THEN, I restarted the ‘restore file’ for this one PST file again on Wednesday (it’s now Friday) at 10:00 AM and it’s now Friday 9:00 AM and the file is STILL not restored. One file. Correction, it did ‘restore’ (after 24 hours each time) – but as soon as the restore completed the file was magically erased from my desktop. TWICE. I wait a full day and the system automatically deletes the file I just ‘restored.’
As an FYI, I called again this morning at 9:00 EST and got the message that I was the ‘first caller in line’. Whatever. It’s now been over 30 minutes and I’m STILL on hold (again) even though I’m the ‘first’ caller. What a fraud and scam this company is.
Better yet, I have called customer UNservice Four times over the last several days and I have been on hold for a total of over EIGHT HOURS. Did you read that? EIGHT DAMNED HOURS!!!! However, if I want ‘Priority Customer Service’ – which supposedly gets you ‘immediate’ customer service with their ‘most experienced and senior technicians’ (their on-hold message quoted verbatim) all I have to do is pay another $20 and they’ll actually answer the phone (or so they say). The message here is that normal everyday paying customers can go get screwed and only those people who pay Carbonite more money above and beyond the actual service price will ever be taken care of. The funny thing is that I DID choose to pay this money because my time is more important than $20 – but when I pressed the star key for access to this service (the ‘Priority Support Line’), the SAME TECH GUY that I had spoken with three times previously as a ‘regular’ peon customer answered – just with the new line: “Welcome to Carbonite Priorty Support”. This is the same guy that when I asked yesterday how long he had been with the company told me just THREE MONTHS! This is Carbonite’s idea of ‘most senior and experienced technicians’ – someone whose been with the company three months? The SAME NEW GUY that answers regular support calls? I asked him what the advantage of paying $20 this service was and he said I’ll only be on hold for 30 minutes instead of an hour or two. He REALLY said this. I’m paying for nothing other than to cut down (not eliminate) my hold time!!!!!
Also, if I have happened to talk to the SAME guy each and every time I have called and been on hold – doesn’t that mean that they only have 2 or 3 people supporting the entire world that uses their faulty and misleading product? I can’t be so lucky as to magically get the same person each time if there are 10 or 50 support reps.
In my opinion, Carbonite promotes false advertising and they lie about the quality of their service. They are unethical and extremely undependable. This is a pathetic company with the worst service I have EVER experienced (I would rather call India and speak with ‘Bob or ‘Nancy’ for support – does that tell you anything about how lame their support is?) and I hope that their false advertising, poor product, and miserable customer service catch up with them and that they go out of business. As soon as I get my file back I am cancelling my subscription.
Take my advice and RUN RUN RUN. Buy an external drive and backup locally. This service is horrible and the people that claim to have never had problems with Carbonite have probably never actually had to restore their data yet. This service is pathetic and I don’t have a single good thing to say about them.
Mark // July 17, 2008 at 8:24 AM |
I just switched from Mozy to Carbonite – I have been running Mozy for 7 months.
Like the product when it works.
I spent 1 1/2 months working on a problem related to my pst files not backing up – ended up being a corrupt manifest on the Mozy side. That problem was fixed and no more problems. I had amazing response from Mozy support and had 30 people sign up for Mozy Pro – I was spreading the word about Mozy.
Then with the most recent application upgrades my wife’s laptop stopped fully encoding and would hang backing up the pst files. I spent a lot of time trying to decode this problem, sending screen shots, rerunning test etc and the Mozy support went from being Rock stars to dud’s. I would go 1-2 weeks without a response to my problem. In the middle of all of this, my wife’s manifest kept getting cleaned 2-4 times a week, which means we had to partially backup 6GB multiple times a week to create a new manifest.
I grew very tired of the slow response and unwillingness to address the problems, so I switched.
It is possible I’m part of the problem, by sending so many new customers to Mozy, they could be growing very fast and not able to service customers properly.
With Mozy, I never got phone support – just e-mail. I really wanted to talk to a person.
Mozy is a good company, but I couldn’t put up with data not being backed up and the lack of focus to fix problems. Maybe in a year or two I will switch back.
Kevin // October 4, 2008 at 7:57 PM |
Yep I’m one of the latest to THINK that Carbonite was worth the money. Like any backup, it’s useless unless you verify. Now that I’m desperately trying to restore my laptop after a hard drive crash, I’ve realized what a huge steaming pile of CRAP Carbonite really is but no one knows. Yet anyway.
It is now going to be my life’s mission to make sure everyone knows they are a fraudulent company. I’ve been trying to restore my laptop for 3 WEEKS now. Not 3 hours, 3 days, 3 freakin’ weeks! And like everyone else I was absolutely amazed they have the balls to keep people on hold for more than 3 hours straight. F-ing unbelievable.
DON’T use Carbonite. Use an external hard drive that won’t ignore your repeated e-mail requests for help only to respond 1 1/2 weeks later saying I should try to click on the Carbonite icon at the bottom of my screen. HELLO! I HAVE no laptop going since my freakin’ hard drive crashed so I CAN’T give you my serial number to get the backup going.
Once I got THAT problem solved it’s now been 3 weeks of every night starting the restore, it goes 1%, hangs, I have to reboot computer, restore another 1% etc. But it never goes beyond 16%.
Carbonite SUCKS! Tell everyone. Stay away at all costs! An external hard drive costs, what, $120 for 500GB? And Carbonite will rip you off for $79 a year and NOT work?
YOU do the math.
Eric Bloch // October 7, 2008 at 9:27 AM |
I have had similoar bad experiences with Carbonite and their customer support. I lost a drive and it turned out they had not backed up any of it (yes it was an internal drive), even though the software made it seem as they have.
Carbonite is a scam.
ProfitGanda // October 8, 2008 at 7:32 PM |
I have used Carbonite since Jan 2008. It has continually backed-up my data. At times it would suck up up to 20% of my dual core resources tanking the performance of my laptop for no apparent reason. I would be forced to shut down Carbonite and restart it only to have it do it again a few hours later.
At times it would seem to bak-up in real-time and not its designated schedule.
Recently my hard drive died. I replaced it and installed the OS and wanted to reinstall Carbonite so that I could restore my files. Oddly, my password did not work. I requested a password reset. They asked for the serial number of the Carbonite application. I do not have the serial number because it is not currently installed – I need to download it in order to install it.
I have sent an email to Customer Service. That was over a week ago. I used their online form – over a week ago and NO ONE HAS ANSWERED ME.
Come on, customer is key to any business. Do not use Carbonite because they will not be in business too much longer having zero customer service.
Do not put yourself in the position of needing your files and counting on carbonite to help you.
I wuld recommend that everyone sign-up for the S3 Service from Amazon. You can store data for 15 cents a month per GB of data. You will need a means of accessing the service otherwise you will have to write your own because the S3 service is for developers. You can a nice fron-end called Jungle Disk. (www.jungledisk.com). It is software that connects to the service.
You can schedule backups, designate files to backup, designate expiration date, create download links so you can share a file with a friend or family member. The best part is that S3 is super fast and super encrypted.
Check it out and screw Carbonite the useless piece of crap service with lousy customer service.
unpunk // November 28, 2008 at 1:02 PM |
1 hour, 46 minutes and 32…33…34 seconds that I have been on hold with Carbonite cusotmer service. AFTER waiting 45 minutes for a live on line support tech that told me that he was sending me an email that would explain to me how to restore lost files from THEIR site! The email explained to me how to restore files from their site to my desktop but nothing about finding lost files on their site. My harddrive bombed so I was relieved that I had Carbonite until I went to download the backup files and they were GONE! Five years of work, my wedding pictures and family events….GONE! “Thank you for continuing to hold. Your call is important to us. Please continue to wait for the next available representative or you can reach through email at customerservice(or lack thereof)@carbonite .com.” ….*bad 80’s elevator music*…”Thank you for continuing to hold. Your call is important to us. Please continue to wait for the next available representative or you can reach through email at customerservice(or lack thereof)@carbonite .com.” ….*bad 80’s elevator music*…”Thank you for continuing to hold. Your call is important to us. Please continue to wait for the next available representative or you can reach through email at customerservice(or lack thereof)@carbonite .com.” ….*bad 80’s elevator music*…”Thank you for continuing to hold. Your call is important to us. Please continue to wait for the next available representative or you can reach through email at customerservice(or lack thereof)@carbonite .com.” ….*bad 80’s elevator music*…”Thank you for continuing to hold. Your call is important to us. Please continue to wait for the next available representative or you can reach through email at customerservice(or lack thereof)@carbonite .com.” ….*bad 80’s elevator music*…”Thank you for continuing to hold. Your call is important to us. Please continue to wait for the next available representative or you can reach through email at customerservice(or lack thereof)@carbonite .com.” ….*bad 80’s elevator music*…
Tomas Schmidt // December 23, 2008 at 11:53 PM |
I think it’s very telling that the son of Dave Friend, the founder of Carbonite, hadn’t even used the Carbonite Mac product while it was in beta. Dave even mentions it on Carbonite’s cheesy blog in the below post (Disaster Hits Home): http://carbonite.com/blog/
“His mac with all his professional work was vaporized, as was his external hard drives that he used for backup. I am kicking myself for not getting him onto our mac beta, but he was waiting for the production release next month.”
I mean, come on!! Your own son has a MAC and you don’t have him use it during your own company’s beta for their “upcoming” MAC product?! It sounds like a really, really, great product.
Bruce Goldensteinberg // February 3, 2009 at 3:19 PM |
Carbonite is a fraud of a company whose employees post favorable reviews of their craptacular product.
Scott // February 5, 2009 at 9:28 PM |
I had to restore my system . Yup. Carbonite is great –until you need it. Right now the PST file seems to be hanging up everything. It’s not that large and yet I’m unable to restore it. I was “comforted” reading Kelly’s post (since I’m not the only one). Odd thing is that last year when I had the same problem the restore went off without a hitch. I don’t know what has happened to Carbonite, but is is horrible. I stayed home from work today so I could “chat” with tech support – one thing for sure, they make Dell Tech Support look awesome. I’m afraid I may have to bite the bullet on some of these files. I’ll be downloading Mozy shortly and pray that nothing like this happens again.
Axel Aguado // February 6, 2009 at 10:40 AM |
My PC crashed, re-built it (with Vista), and I cannot restore my files. I’ve been working with Carbonite’s customer support for a week. I even paid $20 for their “priority support” service. It did not help. On Feb 3, they escalated the issue but the only status I hear is “the engineers are working on it, thanks for your patience, etc.” I emailed Jeffrey Robison, VP – Customer Care & Operations twice, no answers. I also emailed the CEO. Silence. I wonder if they can put my files in their FTP site so I can grab them. Has anyone tried this?
At this point, my best recommendation for backups is an external drive and good backup software. Forget Carbonite.
V // March 11, 2009 at 2:43 PM |
I am attempting a full restore from Carbonite, about 36G total. I am 5 days into the “restore” and have been able to recover 190 of my 5000 files. At this rate, I will have all my files back in 26 days. I have sent several e-mails and haven’t received even one acknowledgment, and the “service” “technicians” I have “chatted” with have offered to BEGIN LOOKING AT THE PROBLEM in another 72 hours. I run a business. At least I USED to run a business back in the days before I really nedded remote backup and became a full-time victim of an absurdly mismanaged backup service. This has crippled my business. My advice: get external devices for local backup.
Mike // March 12, 2009 at 3:11 AM |
I have to echo the comments about Carbonite’s poor support. I had a problem with stalled/failed backups and their “support” consisted of confirming that my computer hadn’t completed a backup in a week. It just so happened that my subscription was expiring this week; the irony is that I wouldn’t have looked for another service and would have forked over another $50 if this support issue hadn’t come up. As it is, I’ve switched to JungleDisk, which will turn out to be a less expensive option for me (I’m backing up <10Gb). Poor support plus the economics of S3 is going to kill these guys.
johnwlewis // March 12, 2009 at 9:06 AM |
Does anyone have any opinions on Dropbox (http://www.getdropbox.com), compared with Carbonite, Mozy or any other backup service?
Ryan // March 12, 2009 at 1:59 PM |
@johnlewis: I actually like Dropbox quite a bit. It isn’t the same as Mozy though… it’s not really meant for data “backup”. It’s more of a syncing service (i.e. not the same encryption / security requirements, etc.). I use both Dropbox and Mozy.
David Friend // March 19, 2009 at 10:59 AM |
Axel: I looked at the chain of correspondence between you and Carbonite, and it appears that you did not follow the instructions that were sent to you. It’s possible that the instructions were not clear enough, but according to our records your files were restored. If that’s not the case, please let me know.
David Friend, CEO
david.friend@carbonite.com
David Friend // March 19, 2009 at 11:07 AM |
V – The cheapest DSL plans download at about 1mbps. That equates to 8GB per day if you leave your computer running 24 hours a day and aren’t using it for other tasks. At that speed it should only take 4-5 days to download all your 36GBs. If you have a premium DSL package, it will go faster. Carbonite should not be the limiting factor since the pipes into our data centers are all greater than 1GB/sec. If you did not get a good answer from customer support on this, I’d like to know about it. My email addres iss david.friend@carbonite.com.
Axel Aguado // March 20, 2009 at 8:04 AM |
Carbonite’s CEO just posted a comment saying I did not followed the “instructions” to restore my files. I’ve been in the IT industry for over 20 years in software development and I know how to follow instructions. Reality is Carbonite is unable to restore my files. A backup program is supposed to have a copy of ALL your files until you’re ready to restore. I had submitted a BBB complaint in Boston against Carbonite (boston.bbb.org, case 17241). I also submitted a claim in the MA attorney general office. I cannot believe what I’m going thru with Carbonite. CARBONITE, please give me my files or allow me a way to get them (even if I have to FTP them down!)
I am warning everybody, keep Cabonite, but keep some DVDs handy with your most important files. You may need them!
Axel Aguado // March 20, 2009 at 8:09 AM |
By the way, Carbonite just gave me a $45 credit (unsolicited) for my subscription. How many of my files (I got about 25+ GB in Carbonite’s servers) can I buy with $45?
Axel Aguado // March 20, 2009 at 12:01 PM |
By the way: Here are the “instructions” I receive from Carbonite. Please judge by yourselves and see if they are too complicated to follow or not:
———————————————————–
Hi Axel and thank you for contacting Carbonite Customer Support.
You issue has been resolved. You will need to follow the instructions as is listed below to restore your backed up data. It will first have you manually uninstall Carbonite. You want to make sure there are no more Carbonite files on your PC. After you that follow the restore instructions.
If an incomplete installation is preventing both a reinstall and an uninstall, we suggest that you follow the steps below to manually remove the Carbonite program files.
Reboot your computer.
Open My Computer and browse to C:\Program Files\Carbonite\Carbonite Backup.
Right-click on CarboniteService.exe and rename it to CarboniteService.old.
Right-click on CarboniteUI.exe and rename it to CarboniteUI.old.
Right-click on CarboniteNSE.dll and rename it to CarboniteNSE.old.
Reboot your computer again.
Open My Computer and browse to C:\Program Files\Carbonite\Carbonite Backup.
Delete CarboniteService.old, CarboniteUI.old, and CarboniteNSE.old.
Reboot your computer one more time.
The three reboots, while tedious, are very important in order to unload and remove the program successfully.
If you do not have Carbonite already installed, log in at http://www.carbonite.com/manage/manage.aspx?action=how_to_recover and follow the steps to install, then choose to use the Restore Wizard, by clicking Yes, help me restore files now.
The Restore Wizard can be very useful for two types of data restoration.
The first type is the full or partial restore of missing or deleted files and folders to a normally functioning system running Carbonite. In this mode the Wizard will compare all the files in the backup with the files selected for backup on the system, then restore any files that are missing on the system from the backed up copies.
——————————————————-END.
Axel Aguado // March 20, 2009 at 12:10 PM |
Two Carbonite Customer Reps (Conor and Dominique) followed the instructions (I gave them complete access to my PC via remote sessions). Unsuccessful. In one of the re-boots, I got the blue-screen-of-death and the disk forced Windows to start in Safe mode. I scheduled a “Check Disk” windows operation and that fixed the problem. I do not have my files. My files are in Carbonite’s servers. If carbonite puts the files somewhere, I can FTP them down. Or they can fix their software as they had promised me. I paid for “premium” support and after two “escalations” of my issue, I don’t have my files. It’s being three month (I’m not kidding
)
Ron // March 23, 2009 at 11:41 AM |
Oh my. Why didn’t I read this post before I installed Carbonite? My hard drive failed on Friday March 20. After reinstalling Windows XP and Carbonite I started the restore process. After 24 hours the restore just stopped. It wouldn’t let me cancel it either. Carbonite customer service “Chat”… wow. Very poor performance. After 45 minutes chatting (accounting for 4-5 minutes per response of course) with Parker and Ken I got absolutely no answers or resolution. They gave me some canned response about reinstalling Carbonite (duh, I’ve already done that twice). The last time I reinstalled and restarted the restore it stopped at 30 files. I guess I’m screwed and out of a lifetime of family vacation photos. Thanks Carbonite. I’m going to email Rush Limbaugh too. What a disappointment.
Axel Aguado // March 23, 2009 at 3:21 PM |
“Welcome” to the club, Ron. I’ll also e-mail Rush. BTW, I submitted a claim w/ MA Attorney General (fill the form at
http://www.mass.gov/Cago/docs/Consumer/consumercomplaintform.pdf )
I also open a case with boston.bbb.org
I will not give up until Carbonite allows me to get my files. “Instructions” sent to me regarding the restore should not affect the copies of my files they have in their servers (if they really meant to “back up” my files). Otherwise, Carbonite’s business model is misrepresenting what’s sold to customers. I’ll continue to call (just pay $20 to get “premium” support and you’ll get in) almost every day until I get my files. I cannot afford to lose them.
Mike D // April 29, 2009 at 9:20 AM |
I tried Mozy about 2 years ago and it just about brought my PC to a dead stop because it was suing so much in resources. Tried to contact customer support and never got an answer.
Went with carbonite and everything seemed great. Initial backup (about 120 gig) took a while, but didn’t use much in the way of resources.
When computer crashed restored everything from a local backup and attempted to set Carbonite back up. After more than 2 weeks, it was still attempting to back everything up and was saying I had more than 210 in backup files (with almost 20 gig left to backup). Yes PC was running 24/7, not set to go to sleep, and have a decent interest speed 0about 3 mbs.
I attempted to chat online 3 times with Carbonite about this. Two times chat sessions cut off mid way through. Never could get it working the 3rd time. I received a chat log for someone else’s chat session. Have sent 4 emails spelling out my problems, twice they have come back with instruction on how to restore my data even though I have made it clear I am attempting a new backup, not restore. Other 2 times no response at all. Email response is about 48 hours.
I’m dropping online backup services except for critical files. WIll go back to an external hard drive stored in offsite safe.
Rob Jordan // May 12, 2009 at 10:50 AM |
I’m currently running a restore of my files using carbonite of about 200GB (approx 65,000 files) since my hard drive failed. I am thankful that I had the carbonite service has I have about 5 years worth of family photos and videos I’ve backed up. I’ve noticed that if my computer restarts during the restore that it doesn’t always resume where it left off. Windows applied a security update during the restore process and restarted my machine and carbonite did not resume the restore even after a few hours. I can tell this because I am using a program called cisco speed meter pro which shows which apps are using the most bandwidth and I could see carbonite was averaging about 259KB/sec when it was restoring files. I also saw that files were in a state of “Restore is queued for processing” under My Computer\Carbonite Backup Drive\RestoreRoot\Restore pending folder. When I file is actively being restored it says “Restore is currently in progress”. I’ve found that If I uninstall and reinstall carbonite, I get the restore process going again. The uninstall an re-install only takes about 5 min. This time I chose not to do the automated full restore and I am restoring individually selected folders so that the restore process is keeping track of 1,000 or less files at a time. I let everyone know if I am able to restore all 200GB and how long it takes. Currently carbonite has a feature that shows a counter for Files Restore and Files Pending Restore. I hope they will add a graph for the progress of the current files and an ETA for completion time just like you see when you download files on the internet. I think most users would be ok with waiting a week for large amounts of data as long as they have an expectation for how long it will take and a report of the progress being made.
Axel Aguado // May 19, 2009 at 10:26 PM |
I day it agaim; Carbonit was a waste of time for me. By definition a “backup” is a COPY of your file(s) you can access at any time unless YOU delete it. Carbonite lost my files. They just sent me an e-mail (see copy below) stating they cannot do anything for me because the files “are corrupted”. Unbelievable. They had FAILED.
——————————————————-
Copy of last e-mail from Carbonite’s support dept:
From: Marshall (customersupport@carbonite.com)
Sent: Tue 4/28/09 2:35 PM
To: axelag@hotmail.com
Hello and thank you for contacting Carbonite Customer Support.
During our call today I checked on the status of the escalation. I was informed that the rollback could not be done a second time, because the status files have become corrupted, and they will not be able to reconstruct any of your information to make it restorable. I have attached the email of our VP for you to discussed any possible resolution His email is jeffrey.robison@carbonite.com
————————————–
This is what Jeffrey R said to be at Boston’s BBB:
Mr. Aguado I appreciate your frustration but there are no further steps we can identify to take to assist you. I am happy to discuss this matter with you further and you can call me on 617-587-1170. This is my direct office line. Jef
————————–
I called him. No response. I may need to take legal action so I’m evaluatging my options.
Rob Jordan // May 20, 2009 at 11:58 AM |
So far, my file restore is proceeding. It’s about 75% complete and I’m restoring about 120GB of files. I’m averaging about 300KB/second. I just purchased an external hard drive to supplement my carbonite backup service. So next time, I will restore from the external as that would be a lot faster. I’m going to keep carbonite as in case my external drive fails.
Rob
Been // May 21, 2009 at 10:32 PM |
I think you’re going to find faults with both services, and horror stories with both. Generally I’d say they’re both okay most of the time.
Spend $100 on Newegg and you can get a 1TB SATA drive (1TB is nearly 1000 GIGS). That’s enough space for most people to keep 2 or 3 versions of the same backup.. THEN, you backup one of those backups online with Mozy or Carbonite.
Of course things happen (fire, theft) and you may need to rely on the online backup, but that should be your LAST RESORT. You’re stupid to not backup locally first. Spend $50-$100 and install a drive, or buy an external drive if you have a laptop and use some free desktop software (I use Cobian Backup) to do the thing automatically.
Rob Jordan // May 28, 2009 at 6:57 AM |
I was able to restore nearly 150GB, however I did have an issue with about 30 important files where they would appear to download and fail at the last minute. Their chat service was polite and helpful, but could not go beyond basic troubleshooting. I paid the 19.95 to get priority phone support for up to one year and was able to speak to a support engineer within a few minutes. The support session took about an hour, partly due to the files we were working with being 100MB or larger. I believe the issue had to with encyrption as I saw something them edit a registry setting on my pc that had something to do with sha. The files I had trouble with were backed up in June/July of 2008. Thankfully that fixed the issue and the rest of the restore went ok. So from what I’ve learned, I’ve done the following: Purchased a 1.5GB internal and external drive (about $130 each), setup backup job from my internal to external drive with GoodSync, and I’m going to keep carbonite as it is very reasonably priced and it worked for me.
Bob G // August 9, 2009 at 5:39 PM |
Used Mozy a couple of years ago. Mozy lost every HTML file from my backup… and I am a designer. Six years of archived sites gone.
Now I am in the middle of a 83,000 file restore from Carbonite. It has been stopped at 8K files for over a day. No reply from tech support, but it has only been 10 hours.
Right now, I am a little apprehensive. Thankfully, the SUPER critical files seem to have been in the first 8K to restore.
John G // August 9, 2009 at 10:33 PM |
I really can’t imagine why anyone would trust their critical files to Mozy, Carbonite, or any similar service. Are people too stupid to buy USB hard drives? Anyone using either of these ridiculous services deserves whatever they get.
Bob G // August 10, 2009 at 3:23 AM |
My restore of 15GB from Carbonite is proceeding nicely.
I uninstalled Carbonite using Revo Uninstaller, then reinstalled. I am restoring folder by folder to maintain control, not all at once. I am about 1/3 done with no problems, delays, etc.
Carbonite Review // August 27, 2009 at 1:29 PM |
This company is a scam…stay away from their online backup since its sucks big time. A waste of money and when you need it they wont give you the files. Their employees have been caught spamming amazon reviews. Read this post about carbonite scam on NY Times http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/carbonite-stacks-the-deck-on-amazon/
Hopefully other people read their real reviews before wasting their hard earned money on carbonite
Bob G // August 27, 2009 at 1:43 PM |
Update: Carbonite saved my rear end. I was able to complete a restoration of many gigabytes of data.
There is apparently a known issue regarding a restart during a restore causing it to fail, requiring a complete uninstall and reinstall of Carbonite. Fix that and I will have no problem recommending them.
Ryan // August 27, 2009 at 2:13 PM |
Apparently John G.’s house is disaster/accident-proof. Great for him. For the rest of us, we’ll back up online so as to avoid losing our data due to hard drive (internal or external) crash.
Also, remembering to back up to an external drive can be a hassle. I’d rather just let the software handle it automatically.
Kmuzu // September 15, 2009 at 9:03 PM |
That ass hat Leo Laporte convinced me to use Carbonite. I swear – I’ve had root kit viruses that have treated me better. It crashed my IE and will not under any circumstances uninstall. Please DO NOT ever use Carbonite
Axel Aguado // September 15, 2009 at 9:26 PM |
This is what Jeffrey R finally said to me to “settle”
by giving me $250 if I signed this release. If course, I did not. I’ll keep fighting Carbonite. REMEMBER: They do not backup their servers!!
—-E-Mail From Jeff R.: ——-
Axel :
Thanks for taking the call today. Apologies once again for the difficulties you experienced with Carbonite. As discussed, please consider this release as proposed. The decision to leave the offer unchanged was made after much deliberation with members of our leadership team. If you are ok with this offer either fax or email a signed copy and I will process accordingly.
Jeff
——I was supposed to sign and return this (I DID NOT) ——
Release:
By signing below, I acknowledge that Carbonite, Inc. is providing me with a payment of Two Hundred and Fifty Dollars ($250.00) and I accept that payment in full and complete satisfaction of any claims I may have against Carbonite based in whole or in part on facts and occurrences prior to today’s date. I acknowledge that this payment is being made as a customer accommodation, and is not an admission of liability. I have reviewed the current End User License Agreement (EULA) at http://www.carbonite.com to my full satisfaction, and hereby agree to all of the terms and conditions of the EULA, as it now exists and as it may be amended from time to time, for all future uses of Carbonite products and services.
_______________________________
(signature)
Name: _______________________________
(please print)
Date: ________________________________
Marod // October 28, 2009 at 4:51 AM |
I have been using Carbonite on my desktop computer for 2 years now with no problems. However, I recently loaded it on my laptop. It has not worked properly since. I have to reinstall the program about once every 2 weeks to keep it going. It usually hangs up at 98% complete, says “backup pending” and never moves. After having an online Citrix GoToAssist session with customer service where they tweeked firewall and anti-virus settings, it worked perfectly for about 2 weeks. Then, again it hung at 98%. A call to customer service was greeted with the comment “you can’t use Carbonite on a wireless internet connection” WTF. How man people use their laptops on hardwired connections? Give me a break. If Carbonite can’t come up with a solution, I am asking for a refund (300 days left on 1 year subscription) and find another service. How does Mozy work with wireless connections on laptops?
Ryan // October 28, 2009 at 9:10 AM |
It’s been working just fine for me on a laptop for the last year.
Rob Jordan // October 28, 2009 at 11:18 AM |
While was able to restore many of my files as I mentioned in a previous post, however I was not able to restore all of my files. So ultimately, I’ve decided NOT to renew the Carbonite service. Even with premium support, I’ve been given the runaround and they expect me to open a new case every time I call or email and start over with support from scratch instead of looking up my old ticket and logs I’ve already sent at least 3 times.
Rob