I’ve been using Carbonite for a few months to backup all of my data and it hasn’t been without headaches. In the beginning the software didn’t seem to perform correctly and all of my files were unencrypted and exposed for the world to see. Did you know that all you need is a Carbonite users name and password and you can see EVERYTHING they’ve got? No extra security at all. Furthermore getting a hold of their customer service department is like pulling teeth. They’ve outsourced everything to India and all those folks can do is read the online FAQ’s. This troubles me a lot because we’re not talking about a router you picked up at Radio Shack, we’re talking about your DATA. All those important files. My last disaster with Carbonite on this issue led me through 4 different customer service reps in India before I started war dialing the home office, and even then it was difficult to reach anyone.
So now we’re a couple of months on and that security problem still exists, but my data is encrypted, or so I’m told. The first 100 gigs of data went smoothly, only took 2 weeks. But this last batch of data, around 120 gigs, is taking almost 3 MONTHS to upload. Something in the back of my mind thinks it’s possible Carbonite slows down the upload connection to save costs on their end and prevent you from backing up “too much” – even though their service is supposedly unlimited; kind of reminds me of AT&T!
By the way, any graphic, music, or video artists out there? You’re screwed. Carbonite won’t even backup most of your stuff automatically. You have to manually tell it to which can be a pain in the buggy, slow software. Compound that with the slow up-speed (and before you say anything I’ve tried multiple locations and multiple ISP’s) and Carbonite is just looking to be a flash in the pan sucky service.
I genuinely fear the day I have to restore from Carbonite. If the up-speed is this slow I dread what the down-speed might be. The name/password security has been flawed since the day it was born and for a company to have that as the ONLY method of protecting your data is irresponsible. If you’re just backing up documents then Carbonite will work great for you. But if you’re serious about backing up large chunks of data, photos, music, video, etc. and having it be secured, available, and have the ability to keep up with you, then you should probably look elsewhere.
I really should have done more research on them before I paid. I’m not the first it seems…
Dude restoring is freaming impossible. A f****d up disaster! My original computer crashed and I “restored” to a new lap top and evry damn file that tokk 30 hours to restore is empty. EMPTY!!!!!! A fucking mess.