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.
Tags: backup, bandwidth, broadband, carbonite, data, emc, mozy, storage, Vista, vmware
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Good to see you finally come to your senses on this one Vinny
I've been using Mozy for over a year now and have had a great experience. Maybe this is why Walt Mossberg at the Journal picked Mozy over Carbonite?
Hi David and thanks. I know what you mean
Finally came to my sense — Mozy just rocks and I wish I had discovered it before I wasted my time and money with Carbonite. Floyd Marinescu, who is the co-founder of infoq.com (among many other things) got me hooked on Mozy. I guess better late than never 
Cheers.
Vinny -
Thanks for this post. I've been using carbonite for almost a year, and I've been consistently irritated with the poor customer support and the lack of updates. Case in point: the Carbonite website claims that the current version of the software is 3.0.194 (which is supposed to have new Mozy-like features), dating back to August 29. But if go to the manual install section of the Carbonite website, the only version available for download is 2.3.181 - dating back to July 5!!!
That is to say, Carbonite can't even manage to make the latest version of its software available to current users! And yes, I've emailed carbonite customer service about this problem … and they haven't responded. Not. at. all.
Unfortunately, I'm overseas, and backing-up online is really slow. So, I'll have to wait until my next trip home to the US to buy Mozy. But believe me, I will buy. Thanks again for the helpful post.
Why are you guys trashing Carbonite? Do you all work for Mozy or something? I just checked the version of Carbonite running on my PC and it is version 3.0.212. It gets upgraded automatically in the background, apparently, because I have never had to install an upgrade. And it works reliably and I've never had to even think about it. And when I contacted their customer support with a question, they got right back.
Hans
I'm Carbonite's CEO. Carbonite does NOT throttle upload speeds to 2GB per day. If your Internet connection is fast enough you should be able to upload at least 5GB per day. Most people don't realize that their Internet speeds are asymmetrical. We measure our customers' upload speeds, and the average is 254kbps — that's typical for DSL or home cable connections and it equates to about 2GB per day. That is the guidance we give customers on our web site, so perhaps that's where you got that impression. There is no 50GB throttling limit — we did have that in place briefly last year but today you get the same high speed no matter how big your backup.
Like most professionally managed customer support organizations, we survey customers every week to find out if they had a good experience with our customer support. 92% rate our customer support "good" or "very good". 99+% of customer issues are resolved within one business day. By software industry standards, that's a very good number. If someone is really unhappy, my direct email address is on our web site and I invite anyone who feels they didn't get good service to contact me personally.
Dear Mr. Friend - I find it interesting that you responded to Vinny's complaint - but not mine. So I will repeat it: why isn't the latest version of Carbonite available for download on the carbonite website? The website claims that the newest version of the software is 3.0.194 — released August 29, 2007.
For some reason, though, my software has NOT been automatically upgraded to this version. Instead, it is still running version 2.3.181. I checked the Carbonite website, and it claims that I can manually install the current version. Here are the instructions as provided:
"Whether you use XP or Vista, you can manually upgrade to the latest release. Just log in to your account from your Carbonite-protected PC. Click the 'My Protected Computers' tab, then click the 'Reinstall' button and follow the instructions."
Well, I clicked the "Reinstall" button and followed the instructions. And guess what? The version that I downloaded was 2.3.181!!! That's the version released on July 5, 2007.
This wouldn't bother me much if I hadn't inquired about this problem on September 10 — more than one month ago. (check your customer service logs). And on that date - more than one month ago - I received a customer support reply explaining that Carbonite was still pushing out version 3.0.194. Then, as I just did a few minutes ago, I tried manually upgrading, but was only able to download the older version of the software.
I'm only speculating here, but my reporter's intuition tells me that Carbonite 3.0 is a flawed piece of software that the company is holding back while it fixes bugs. This wouldn't be a problem, ordinarily, except that Carbonite announced the new version with a breathless press release on August 28 and posted an announcement of the new version on the website. So, instead of distributing the improperly tested software, the company decided to continue distributing version 2.3.181 until the flawed 3.0 version could be de-bugged — all the while hoping that nobody noticed.
Well, I've noticed.
If there's another reason why the company is distributing an older version of the software - manually - instead of the one that it promotes as a much improved version, I'd be open to hearing it (I'm a customer, and you can certainly send your response to my private email).
Finally, a few months ago I sent an email to your address, Mr. Friend - and received a reply from one of your tech support staff.
AdamM
Adam: When we roll out a new release, we don't upgrade everyone at once. This is fairly standard practice in distributing upgrades of new releases. No matter now much testing you do in beta, there is always a chance for a bug to slip by that only shows up after the release is in production. So most companies like us don't upgrade their entire customer base in one shot — they upgrade perhaps 10%, watch for week, then upgrade more. So far we have upgraded about 70% of our users with the remainder to be upgraded this week. You should notice version 3 running on your PC by the end of the week.
New users get the latest 3.0 version. If you are an existing user and you reinstall, you do not get automatically upgraded. There is a version flag on your account in our database. When we update your version flag, you get the new version. Until that time, we reinstall the release that's in the database for your account.
As for the david.friend@carbonite.com email address, since I am on the road a good deal of time, I have instructed customer support to triage my incoming messages and handle them as quickly as possible. Anything that customer support cannot handle or that they think requires my personal attention gets forwarded to me. I would hope that the response you got was prompt and appropriate. If you want a messsage to only be answered by me personally, please just say so in the email. Meanwhile I'll make sure that customer support understands the phased rollout of new releases. Thanks for taking the time to point this out.
Regards,
Dave Friend, CEO
Carbonite, inc.
Carbonite Online Backup
Why are you guys trashing Carbonite? Do you all work for Mozy or something? I just checked the version of Carbonite running on my PC and it is version 3.0.212. It gets upgraded automatically in the background, apparently, because I have never had to install an upgrade. And it works reliably and I’ve never had to even think about it. And when I contacted their customer support with a question, they got right back.
Hi Hans. I don't work for Mozy - I happen to like it much better than Carbonite. I've had several problems and I spent WEEKS with customer support and never got resolution and so I'm giving up and going to something that works better. I am glad your experience was better than mine.
Hi Dave and thanks for your comments.
I'm Carbonite's CEO. Carbonite does NOT throttle upload speeds to 2GB per day. If your Internet connection is fast enough you should be able to upload at least 5GB per day. Most people don't realize that their Internet speeds are asymmetrical. We measure our customers upload speeds, and the average is 254kbps - that's typical for DSL or home cable connections and it equates to about 2GB per day. That is the guidance we give customers on our web site, so perhaps that's where you got that impression. There is no 50GB throttling limit - we did have that in place briefly last year but today you get the same high speed no matter how big your backup.
I am glad you've changed your policies and have stopped throttling upload speed.
Like most professionally managed customer support organizations, we survey customers every week to find out if they had a good experience with our customer support. 92% rate our customer support good or very good. 99+% of customer issues are resolved within one business day. By software industry standards, that's a very good number. If someone is really unhappy, my direct email address is on our web site and I invite anyone who feels they didn't get good service to contact me personally.
I am surprised to hear that 99+% of your issues are resolved within one business day. My experience was quite different — I spent several weeks with support to get my files restored and I finally gave up and moved to Mozy, forfeiting the money I had prepaid for 2 years. Maybe you've finally heard from customers and dedicated more resources to supports. I wish you guys luck. Cheers
Dave -
Thanks for the response … and the upgrade. This morning, when I turned on my laptop, a notice popped up announcing that a free Carbonite upgrade was available for download. Now that's what I call responsive customer service!
Thanks for that.
However, I'd like to clarify one last matter. In your response to my note, you write:
"New users get the latest 3.0 version. If you are an existing user and you reinstall, you do not get automatically upgraded. There is a version flag on your account in our database. When we update your version flag, you get the new version. Until that time, we reinstall the release that’s in the database for your account."
Alas, this statement is totally at odds with the instructions given in Carbonite's online Customer Service Center. There, in answer to the question 'How do I get the latest version?' your site offers this instruction:
"Whether you use XP or Vista, you can manually upgrade to the latest release. Just log in to your account from your Carbonite-protected PC. Click the 'My Protected Computers' tab, then click the 'Reinstall' button and follow the instructions."
Quite honestly, Mr. Friend, I never would have posted any of my complaints if the Customer Service section of your site had stated what you just posted to this blog. Hopefully, you'll update it for your other customers.
Thanks for taking the time to respond, and best of luck with your company.
AdamM
You're right, Adam. The info on the web site is wrong about the upgrades. We'll make it correct. Thanks.
Dave
Interesting. I tried Carbonite a few months ago, after finding a friend was using it; unfortunately, it didn't even install successfully - worse, it left the client *half*-installed, with the Explorer shell extension in place but no backup facility! I did use the option to report the problem to customer service, which was apparently supposed to contact me to resolve this but didn't; I think I've manually scraped the bits of Carbonite off my system now, since neither the installer nor uninstaller worked.
Mozy, on the other hand, quite happily backed up 3.3Gb of data in the background without a hiccup (or even a reboot); my MacBook has backed up a further 5.5Gb. The indicated speed fluctuates a fair bit for me, with the Mac peaking at 130Kb/sec while the XP PC next to it has hit 1.1 Mb/sec on the same connection. (Presumably either the beta Mac client has some limitation the PC client doesn't, or it's using Kbyte/sec while the PC one shows Kbit/sec?)
I haven't tried a restore with Mozy yet, but I already know it's managed to get much further than Carbonite ever attempted!
Hey Vinny, glad to see that my couple of lines about block level updates and outlook were convincing.
I was very happy with Mozy until I upgraded to Vista. Vista appears to be quite buggy and my computer crashes quite often. Whenever Vista restarts, Mozy for some reason sees fit to start scanning all my PST files even though I configured it to never run unless the computer is idle. Quite annoying, but other than that it's a great product.
I think I'll switch back to XP.
Is there a way to restore files on Mozy that's fast? What's a reasonable period of time to get files retrieved. i tried retrieving two files and they weren't ready until the next morning. Also, they don't seem to be put back in the same folders from which they were deleted. Am I missing something?
Ron Vargas - There is another way to restore files using Mozy. The client app allows you to open My Computer and then the Mozy Virtual Drive and select any file you want, right click and then either restore to default location or restore to alternate location. That's the fastest way to restore small numbers of files like you mentioned. Hope that helps at least a little.
Dear Vinnie,
I have emailed Carbonite 3 times in as many days about a faulty restore. I can't get a reply from them. I have lost over 300 important addresses in my address book (also, favorites folder). Today will be my fourth attempt and I will address it to David Friend as revealed in your blog. Thanks, Vinny, for your great blog and I will check out Mozy as my experience with Carbonite in getting a new computer up and running has been very frustrating.
I should add that I am a writer and author and I did get all my files in MS Word back and operational. That meant a great deal to me. However, that was not that critical as I had those files backed up on disk anyway because of my distrust of any internet BU system.
Thanks, and have a great day,
Charlie
Mesquite, NV
Hi Charles,
I see that you've been in communication recently with Rosanne from Carbonite and that you were able to import your Outlook file successfully after restoring. Please let us know if you need any additional assistance.
Sincerely,
Len Pallazola
Manager, Customer Service Systems
Carbonite, Inc.
http://www.carbonite.com
Charles: I saw your post and sent an e-mail to follow up. I wanted to find out if your problem was resolved and what your experience was in dealing with Carbonite Customer Support. I trust the problem was resolved, but please let me know.
Dave
To Mr. Friend - I have a big frustration with Carbonite's periodic downloading throughout my working hours - usually in the mid-PM and a bit later. While your program is running, it slows me down to a crawl. I have sent several e-mails to the lady contact for your company but no reply.
While I haven't tested access, I would be ok with trying the backups during the 1 AM to 5 AM period.
Please advise what you can do to immediately rectify this - or how I may obtain a refund and cancel the subscription. Thank you, Julius
Dear Julius,
Are you sure it's Carbonite doing this? Carbonite doesn't run at specific times. It runs all the time in the background in very low priority mode. Next time you think this is happening, bring up the Windows Task Manager and check the processes. Look for the processes CarboniteService.exe and CarboniteUI.exe. I think you'll see that neither of them are using more than 1 or 2% of your CPU. Feel free to contact me directly at david.friend@carbonite.com.
Regards,
Dave Friend, CEO
Carbonite Online Backup
If you try carbonite, it will never leave! I tried out and didn't want it. I now want to remove client, but can't do so. Carbonite makes it impossible to do an uninstall… Now I have this noisy client chewing up my CPU. Nothing from customer service on this. Grrrr….
Hi Suzy,
Are you having difficulty uninstalling Carbonite using the Add/Remove Programs control panel? (This control panel is called "Programs and Features" if you use Windows Vista.)
In cases where folks have had difficulty uninstalling Carbonite from the control panel, usually reinstalling (even just a new free trial) first allows the Add/Remove Programs control panel to uninstall successfully.
If that doesn't resolve your issue, we can provide more detailed instructions on how to uninstall Carbonite manually. Have you written to customersupport@carbonite.com? If not, please do so - and if you have, please let me know if you have still not received a response from that address and I'll track it down.
Sincerely,
Len Pallazola
Manager, Customer Service Systems
Carbonite, Inc.
http://www.carbonite.com
Mr. Friend:
I must say that I've had an excellent experience so far. I've been only trying the service for a few days, but when I've e-mailed customer service with questions, I've had a quick and accurate answer (specifically from "John"). Very pleasant exception to the rule.
I'm close to finishing up my initial backup, and we've been pushing about 3GB/day (a little more), even with moderate use on our computer.
My wife loves that there's nothing to do; it just does its job in the background. That adds a lot to the value, in my opinion.
While I'm still early in the cycle of getting to know your service, so far what I see impresses me. I have several technophobic clients that I have a hard time getting them to even use external drive backups, because they don't like leaving their machine on, or several other issues. This gives me an alternative.
No, I don't work for Carbonite. Mozy also has an excellent product. I'm just thinking about the human side of the equation, and for my neophyte and technophobe users, this is a terrific solution.
-Richard
Vinny -
Great discussion you've started here between Mozy and Carbonite!
Given that you've tried both products, I was wondering your thoughts about which is superior for backing up outlook PST files that are large and constantly changing - specifically, does either service allow you to not have to upload daily the entire huge PST file when just a small part of it changes.
I'm currently using Connected.com (Iron Mountain), because when I signed up years ago, it seemed like the best service for dealing with such PST files. I'm on a slow DSL connection, so uploading a revised PST file that was >300 MBs every night was not possible, but I still wanted to make sure that the 1-5 MBs of info that changed daily was automatically backed up nightly. Connected's client software only needs to upload the part of the PST file that has changed so it's worked for me for years.
However, Connected is more expensive than Mozy or Carbonite and lacks some features I would want, so I'm considering switching. I see that Mozy has "block-level incremental backups" - does that mean that it handles PST files in the same way Connected does?
In short - I'd love to hear your thoughts on how using Mozy or Carbonite have affected your ease of backing up PST files, one of the most essential but difficult aspects for me personally in making sure my data is secure.
Thanks!
-Josh
I'm so glad to see the CEO of a company patrolling the comments section of a website about his services. I wish this type of dialogue could happen more often. It almost makes me want to stay with Carbonite.
I am about halfway through my free trial and was extremely disappointed to find out that Carbonite does not currently support external or networked drives. A very quick response from your customer service came back telling me that this feature was expected in an upcoming release within the next three months, but I don't know if I can believe it.
I think I may have to uninstall and use Mozy myself due to this fact. Why would you NOT support external drives from day 1?
Thank you,
Matt Klein
Matt: Yes, release 3.5 which is now in beta supports external hard drives. if you're a subscriber, you'll be updated automatically in early February. As for network drives, that will be included in a future business-oriented release
Dave Friend, CEO
Carbonite, Inc.
@Josh - I use Mozy and it backs up my huge Outlook .PST files without a hitch. It only uploads 1-2MB, so it must be able to integrate the changed parts of the file with the previously backed up version.
I haven't had to use it for real yet, but Mozy seems to work brilliantly. I like the option to manually throttle upload speeds at certain times of the day - it ensures my kids don't suffer lag with our shared internet connection.
@Josh - Carbonite performs incremental backups of files (such as your .PST file) once the file has been backed up initially, so just the changes to the file are transferred rather than the entire file. Carbonite uses the Windows VSS (Volume Shadow Service) component so that these changes can be backed up even if the file is in use at the time.
Carbonite's upcoming version 3.5 also includes a scheduling feature to allow automatic management of your bandwidth, so for example you can restrict backup to occur after hours.
Please help me get rid of Carbonite . Customer service was not helpful. I tried the free trial version that I heard of on the Howard Stern show. For me Carbonite is an annoying popup that won't go away. I cannot get rid of it using my add/remove program. Please just help me! I am not interested in a discussion of the product.
Mark
saxmar@msn.com
@Mark - please send an e-mail to customersupport (at) carbonite.com with ATTN: Len as the subject line and include your phone number and a good time to call, and I'll have someone call you and walk you through uninstalling it manually. Alternately, you can try first reinstalling (even just a new free trial) and then use the control panel to uninstall. (In some cases, partially uninstalling a program, such as by deleting one of the installed files, can prevent the add/remove programs control panel from removing the program properly, but reinstalling first should correct issues like that. This is true of nearly any Windows program.)
I'm sorry that you weren't happy with Carbonite, and we can certainly help you remove it.
I ran microsoft disk drive cleaner and it wiped out my entire hard drive even the os, it has been 3 days since that has happened and i still havent been able to download all my files from carbonite. not sure why but here i sit still waiting and nothing happening. sent an e mail to customer support but they said it will be 72 hours till they can get back to me. of course today is friday, so maybe some time by the end of next week i will hear from them.
am pretty discouraged with the howard stern suggested corbonite
I have been using Carbonite, and I do not understand the negativeness towards it that appears here.
Granted if I ever have a disaster and my files aren't able to be restored, I may feel upset like some are here, but that doesn't seem to be an issue here with anyone.
David, thank you for being part of the discussion here. However, on one matter, it seems there is a discrepency. You say the throttling at 50 GB has been removed. My computer CLEARLY slowed down the backup process at 50 GB. Not only that carbonites icon turned green like it was done, but it is SLOWLY getting all the video and other larger files in the background.
But there was a definite change at 50 GB. Even though you say this isn't the case. It is no big deal… but it is there.
I see version 3.5 is coming with some good features. Namely the ability to pick ANY file type easily (having to select BACKUP VIDEOS in EVERY folder AND subfolder with videos is tedious and made not convenient at all. I am looking forward to this feature.
The new dot updates on the folders is a welcome change as blue doesn't mean much. As far as the scheduling system, I see that is part of Mozy, however, I am pretty happy just letting carbonite do its thing in the background. I have 4 GB or RAM and I don;t notice it.. at all. Period. So I hope the option to leave it coninuously backup the same as it doe snow is still available.
The ONE thing that still would be tremendous and make Carbonite a home run is the ability to both RESTORE and SEE backed up files online on the web from any browser (so if you are elsewhere and want a picture file sent to a friends computer you can easily do this). I know there are other programs designed for that, and I use 2 of them, but since Carbonite has all your files online ANYWAY why not include this feature that just makes sense. The other thing on the same note, is how about ALSO include a way to share files.directories online and even allow uploading from guests or password holders? I use Mionet right now which allows this. However, in the plight to make sure you don't do anything naughty, they restrict all of the common media file types from being shared (such as mp3, qt, mpg, etc). This is really stupid… and it really renders it useless for transferring files.. and media files are the most common. Not only that it relies on your computer being on and the Mionet client not to "break down." If Carbonite had an online version of this, it would really be great as the program ewould go from just backup to online storage, backup and sharing., Making it more valuable and better. I hope this is planned for the future.
Thats it.. I have no other quiffs at all aout Carbonite. Although I have my external drive (and carbonite cant back those up.. Hope that is fixed) and an offsite BluRay backup, it is great knowing that my files are sitting arond someplace in case everything gets real bad.
And thanks for keeping the carbonite price very reasonable.
Mike
Mark: I found myself in a similar situation after Carbonite's half-installation; since the customer support people never contacted me as promised, I scraped the registry entries off with HijackThis and deleted the files by hand.
Len: Perhaps it would be helpful to provide a removal tool which will remove any Carbonite leftovers, whatever state the installation was in, since the standard uninstaller doesn't seem to do the job for a lot of people?
Tom: My Carbonite-using colleague got his user profile folder back after about 36 hours of restoring - depressingly slow, but it got the job done in the end. It did start re=storing almost straight away, though.
When i started the restore it worked fine, then it started to slow down to the point where nothing at all is happening.I have had a 22kb excel file pending for 2 days now. I have canceled all restores and started a new restore of this 22kb file 2 days ago and nothing.
Sure wish someone would help me get my files because im running a business and need my restored files to actually restore. Its been 4 days now and i am still not able to download from carbonite and still havent even gotten an e-mail from them.
Mike:
Thanks for the suggestion, and glad you like Carbonite. The problem with file sharing is that your files are stored in an encrypted state. We can't read them. We don't like handling unencrypted data for obvious reasons. If you wanted to share the contents of your Carbonite backup with other people, we would have to store your data unencrypted or you would have to give us permission to decrypt your files for you. People have their electronic banking files, emails, and lots of confidential information stored on Carbonite, not just harmless family pictures. Every time we do a customer survey and ask about this, once people think about the implications, they decide to leave well enough alone. The alternative, which is to segment the backup into "encrypted" and "unencrypted" areas, seems too complicated — too many decisions. I'd appreciate your thoughts on the tradeoffs. How would you feel about giving us permission to decrypt your files?
Dave Friend, CEO
Carbonite, Inc.
Guys: I have to concur with Mike. I think this is more of a religious war (like Apple vs. Microsoft) than a technical discussion. I looked at both products and picked Carbonite. If it didn't do what I needed, I would have changed. Period. We're not talking about one product that rocks and other stinks.
They're both decent products with slightly differing philosophies. Having used Carbonite for a few months, I've been happy. No impact on the machine (and the machine it backs up is a crusty old 2GHz Celeron). It's recovered files for us.
My wife uses the machine; she doesn't want detailed technical control. It works. That's the bottom line for her.
If Mozy works for you, if you need or want the scheduling and other control it offers, then that's terrific. I've seen the folks at Carbonite respond VERY quickly to my questions and requests; I've seen them respond with grace here to some fairly barbed comments. Given the quality of their responses and the direction of their new products, I'll stay with them.
If for some reason they change their direction or quality, I'll look at the issue again. Still, I think the correct thinking is that they're both good products, and each will meet a certain demographic better than the other.
Kudos to both companies for making it so hard for us to choose!
Tom, someone will be in touch with you immediately. I'm sorry the autoresponse threw you - we usually reply to messages within the first 24 hours, but we've had some heavy volume this week, mostly due to some phone problems. Those issues are nearly resolved and we're catching up fast on the e-mail queue as well. We do have staff working evenings and weekends as well. I apologize for the delay, and I'm confident we'll be able to resolve your issue quickly.
Sincerely,
Len Pallazola
Manager, Customer Service Systems
Carbonite, Inc.
http://www.carbonite.com
Dear Richard Berry,
Carbonite's new release 3.5 went live today. I believe we now have virtually every significant feature you'll find in any other backup service, plus Carbonite's award-winning ease-of-use.
You mentioned scheduling — 3.5 not only allows you to pick when to back up, but also when NOT to back up. As you know, Carbonite normally provides real-time continous data protection — much better, we think, than batch jobs. However, you may not want backups going on at all during business hours — hence the "blackout" scheduling option in 3.5. So you can now specify "backup at xx:xx hours" or "Don't back up between the hours of x and y."
With the new file versioning feature in Carbonite Release 3.5, Carbonite will automatically store multiple versions of files going back at least 90 days. If a file is accidentally overwritten, the user will be able to go back and restore previous versions.
Carbonite users will also have more options when selecting files to be backed up in Carbonite. Not only can the user back up specific folders, but also file types within individual folders. You'll see a new graphics look on the "Info Center" screen, plus some improvements to the Windows integration.
With this release, Carbonite also allows users to keep their own encryption keys, a practice required by certain legal and healthcare users. You'll also find also a nifty wizard to help with migration from XP to Vista — a common problem these days. There's also optional support for external drives. You'll also notice significant speed improvements — we don't want anyone beating us on speed.
You will get an automatic upgrade over the next week or so — we roll out new releases gradually. There will be a press release on our (new!) web site this week with details. The new web site, BTW, finally offers the ability to purchase multiple subscriptions with one transaction.
You'll also be pleased to know that we're about to launch our new Boston call center with the latest (and hugely expensive) Cisco call center equipment. We will have much better visibility into call queues and call processing times. Our recently launched Talisma customer support system has allowed us to make enormous improvements in customer support — over the last couple of months we've been able to get close to 100% of support emails resolved within 24 hours, with most resolved same business day.
There is certainly a lot going on at Carbonite. Meanwhile, thank you for your measured and mature comments. We agree with you about the excellence of both products.
Regards,
David Friend, CEO
Carbonite, Inc.
David, thanks for the update! I think this will make the decision for others even harder! I love the "arms race" as each company strives to be the best: the winner is the customer, as it should be.
It's similar to Internet Explorer: Until Firefox came along, few improvements were offered. Once competition occurred, both browsers have continually improved. Ain't the free market great?!
Thanks again for a fine product.
-Richard Berry
Thanks carbonite support, i am up and running again, even over the weekend i recieved the support needed to get my restore working. Icant thank you enough for taking care of my problem with such speed i will continue to use carbonite and will refer carbonite.
Tom - glad to hear it!
Sincerely,
Len Pallazola
Manager, Customer Service Systems
Carbonite, Inc.
http://www.carbonite.com
David,
Firstly, I read about 3.5 and am looking forward to getting it. They are great features. I have 4 MB of RAM and never see ANY degredation with Caronite running. I can't tell it is even running at all.. the way it should be… So the scheduling features I will not use, and have it conitnue to back up as files change.
As far as what you said about encryption, it brings up a good point. Currently, I am using Mionet, which runs a client on the desktop and is java based if you want to access your files over the web. They say the files there are encrypted and safe, even with a web interface.
I also run ORB which is for file serving but has a real rboust way to get anything off your computer and stream it. However, I am not sure about it's security.
In any case, with those products I don't ened carbonite to have online access. It would just be nice to have it in the event you want to grab a file, without needing to run other options.
But as you point out, if security is an issue, and there is no way around it, just leave it as is.
And you have a great company. Thank you for all this information. In my company I read a lot of complaints as you do here as well, however, I always remember most people WONT stop and say THANKS or THATS GREAT. Although many passioante ones due.
I started using carbonite because Dell Datasafe was a joke. They web interface wouldn't load, you had no idea what was backed up, and finally when I went to upgrade, it didn't work. At that time I looked at lots of other expensive options. And found you guys.
Although there are comparisons to Mozy, I don't know much about it, but I am happy with Carbonite. And your service and response to the public here is incredible.
Now, I need to get more people referred!
Thanks…..
Mike (patiently waiting for 3.5)
Mike: Mionet is a good product for remote access. I use it too. It's actually a much better way to go than using your backup as a file sharing service. Mionet encrypts the transmission, so it's pretty darned secure. There are many such products on the market and some of them are completely free.
I also forgot to mention that Carbonite is now available in Spanish, in case you need it. Also Japanese, French, Portuguese, German, Chinese, and several others.
Dave
Oh… The One feature in 3.5 I am VERY MUCH looking forward to is the easier way to assign file extensions to be part of your backup that ar enot as a default.
If there was one fault I feel with Carbonite in the past, it is the way you explicitly made it hard to backup video files.
Besides them not being included in the normal backup which I understand as to limit your own storage space (although videos are such a part of peopels lives they should be included), with the old system you not had to go to a ROOT folder.. but to EVERY LITTLE SUBFOLDER to back video files up. I am sure it wouldnt have been too hard to code the program so selecting the main folder for Backup VIdeo In This Folder also did the subfolders. Because Going through EVERY one is a drag.
Fortunately, with the new system, just selecting a few extensions should fix that issue. I was not happy about the ld way, as it seemed to be an obvious way for Carbonite to save on backup space on their servers from being used.
Not a major complaint… but Thanks for fixing.
FYI, Mozy DOES rate limit uploads.
I am not pleased about this. I inquired about it and the response I got back from tech support was this: "If you're getting 129 KB/s, you're at the max. I'm sorry, but I can't make it any faster. "
This fact is not mentioned anywhere in the FAQ and was not mentioned by support earlier in the game. I wish that I would have known this before. I have a 15mbit/15mbit FIOS package and have plenty of upstream bandwidth.
Bob: Seems to me when I was trying Mozy I was getting better bandwidth than that — I seem to recall about 300kbps. But that was almost a year ago. Maybe they have changed their policy. I only have a cable Internet, but I generally get about 1mbps with Carbonite. Not sure how fast it would go if I had FIOS — 1mbps is about the speed of my connection.
Mike: Yes, now with release 3.5 it's easy to back up all your videos.
I'll tell you, though, videos create a problem when you have unlimited backup for a fixed price. People with Microsoft Media Center, for example, sometimes have hours and hours of TV shows that they don't give a hoot about sitting on their often-enormous hard drives. Home movies, on the other hand, are exactly the kind of content that should be backed up. But the TV shows and movies are a problem. We have one user who has 1.4 terabytes of videos backed up with Carbonite. It probably costs us about $1200 per year to back up all this stuff, and the guy pays us $50. These kinds of users may eventually force service providers who offer unlimited backup to put some kind of limits on what constitutes "unlimited." One "unlimted" service already stops you at 150GB, if you read the T&Cs. Another one has decided to throttle upload speeds so that it is just impractical to back up large amounts. I'd be curious to know what the readers of this blog think vendors like Carbonite should do if this problem gets out of hand.
David Friend, CEO
Carbonite, Inc.
David.
When I hear the word UNLIMITED, I expect unlimited… and others will too. Any fine print or restrictions in the TOS will just annoy people, pronbably to the point of finding another service. I am just stating what I see every day from dissatisfied customers where I work, which is not computer related but technology related.
I think the UNLIMITED feature is definitely something that you need to keep. It is the biggest selling feature along with the affordable price.
I do not know what it costs per GB in real money for you guys, but for every person backing 1.4 TB, there are probably dozens backing up under 50 GB.
Unfortunately storage space, as you know from years of experience, will become more needed as we find new uses for the comptuer. I remember when you were king of the hill if you had a 10 MB (thats with an M!) hard drive.
Since this is the case, I don't think going backwards and limited is the way to go. You have the edge right now, and if the Yahoos and Googles ever ge tinto the online storage game.. which is still in its infancy, they surely have the resources to be unlimited. But you have the edge now to grab as many people as possible.
Granted, I totally understand what you are saying about people that take advantage of the service. And my upload speed throttled down after 50 GB. I have about 150 GB of all sorts of things (not just videos those are few). it may take a long time to fully back up my machine. However, I don't care, as the smaller files amd nost of the files backed up first, as important as these others are, they are not often used, like wiht most people, and they have low chance of being corrupted. Could by HD bite it before they are backed up? Sure… but it hasnt up til now, I still do daily backups locally as a secondary cover, and I know that EVENTUALLY they will make it over to you guys.
You also protect yoursevles in other ways, which people may get irked over but I understand. You do not allow external drives to be backed up. That is FINE. That protects you from enormous possible backups as the bigest internal drive is MAYBE 2 TB right now. So you DO protect yourself of course as you know. I am fine with that, and other protections as we dont want you to go out of business. But the unlimited is a no brainer also. You don't worry about it., especially after you spend hours backing up. Case in point. Fast food restaurant M says "We are open 24 hours" Fast food restaurant W says "Open late Every Night". If its 2 AM and I want fast food, Ill go with 24 hours as I KNOW that is DEFINITELY is open. No guess work … same as no hidden lines in the TOS.
So my suggestion is not mess with the UNLIMITED. Throttle down if you HAVE to after 100 or 150 GB. But putting TOS and EULA lines talking about how it isnt unlimited due to this and that… that is just not right. And I think will hurt business especially as this sector matures.
Thats my thoughts….
Mike
Mike: Thank you for your comments. I agree with you. As you know, Carbonite was the first company to offer unlimited backup for a fixed price. It's been the key to our success, so we won't be changing it anytime soon! It's also the key to our ease-of-use. Carbonite is still the only online backup service that doesn't force you to learn a new user interface — just put in your email and password and we back it all up. There's no throttling, BTW.
David Friend, CEO
Carbonite, Inc.
I tried to try Carbonite a while ago, after a colleague recommended it - as I mentioned earlier, it failed completely, both failing to install and failing to uninstall, leaving me with bits of Carbonite software scattered around my filesystem and registry to remove manually. The promised contact from customer services never happened either. Not a great start, which is why I promptly bought a three machine two year subscription to Mozy instead!
Having just gained a new PC, I thought I'd give Carbonite a second chance. This time, it actually installed successfully, and has backed up 4 Gb or so in a little over 24 hours - a tiny fraction of the amount it should have been able to back up given the 100 Mbps upload available to the machine, but good enough. Describing this as 'no throttling' when there's clearly a limitation either Carbonite's end or in the software itself seems a little inaccurate, but the user interface is nice.
James: We try to distribute our inbound bandwidth equitably across a large number of users. Unless there are an unusual number of people idle, it is unlikely that you would get anything like 100Mbps of our bandwidth, as you observed. We usually have over 100,000 PCs sending us data at any time, so we try to give everyone enough that their DSL or cable connection is the limiting factor, not Carbonite. With you monster pipe, that's a different matter! Glad it worked for you.
Dave Friend
CEO
Carbonite, Inc.
David,
Earlier you mentioned no web interface because of security issues with enctryption. However, it appears Mozy DOES have a web interface for restoring and they also have an encrytion key as well.
Its just that it would be agreat feature if someone is away and needed a file easily.
Mike
I've been trying to use Mozy for over 2 weeks, and am VERY frustrated by it's difficulty handling large files.
Mozy advertises that interrupted backups will pick up from where they left off. UNTRUE for large files.
Since one of the large files is my email inbox, Mozy's advice was to not use my email program during upload :ie, for 2+days). But I can also not reboot or even move my laptop during that interim.
It would be much better if you could pause the backup, and resume it later. Or perhaps keep uploading the encoded file, so you could keep working with the actual file, then upload changes later.
Another frustration: customer support can take up to 20 hours to respond via email, which might work if they resolved the problem. But they haven't yet, and each subsequent email means waiting another day to try something new.
So 2 weeks, and countless hours of frustration, and I have nowhere near a full backup.
I've had no problems with Carbonite. OK, no fancy "versioning", but I haven't needed that so far anyway. I have restored files and folders as well as my entire data collection when my previous PC's motherboard died.
RJ: The newest release of Carbonite includes:
* Versioning
* Private Encryption keys
* Restore wizard
* advanced scheduling options
Versioning goes back 90 days, significantly more than our competitors. You will be getting an automatic upgrade over the next week or so, or you can reinstall now from our web site. You won't see any complaints on the web about Carbonite's restore process. It works well. Thanks for using our service.
Dave Friend
CEO, Carbonite, Inc.
OK David, I look forward to it.
I kept running out of space on my hard drive with Mozy and couldn't figure out what the heck was going on. At one point, my system seriously slowed down as if memory were paging like crazy. Could that be a function of running out of disk space? Today I ran across a blog that had reported the same problem.
http://www.justinball.com/2008/02/22/mozycom-and-their-backup-software-is-shit/
I wish I had known about this. Does anyone have any idea what is going on here?
Herb
Hello EMC! Goodbye Mozy.
The first shoe has been dropped by "big brother" EMC. I quote:
"storage.blogs.techtarget.com, Dave Raffo
The Mozy online backup service has gotten considerably more expensive since EMC acquired it from Berkley Data Systems.
In an email to customers, EMC said its MozyPro desktop service retain its price of $3.95 per license and 50 cents per GB while MozyPro server costs $6.95 per license and $1.75 per GB per month. That means a one-server license with 10 GB of storage that would cost $8.95 under the old model will be $24.95 under the new model. A 20-server license with 500 GB goes from $329 to $1,014.
MozyPro customer Jason Powell, IT director at Granger (Indiana) Community Church, wrote about the price increase on his blog, concluding: “An approx (sic) quadrupling in price seems ridiculous to me, but what do I know?â€
Storage is storage. It doesn't cost any more to store a GB of server data than it does to store a GB of my photos. If EMC couldn't make money charging $.50/mo per GB, and now have to charge $1.75/month per GB, what are the green eyeshades at EMC going to do when they discover that I'm backing up 80GB of stuff for $4.95/mo, or roughly 6 cents/GB per month?
According to ComputerWorld, "[EMC VP Roy] Sanford said the company has no plans to charge enterprise-level prices for home users or small and midsize business customers of the Mozy service."
Yeah, right. Anybody want to bet?
Hi Herb. I've never had that issue with Mozy - I asked around to all my friends who I turned on to Mozy and they've never had that issue as well. I checked the Mozy site and found an answer to your problem. I've backed up about 114GB so far and more gets added every day and I've never had problem - Mozy continues to rock.
Visit http://mozy.com/support/supportfaq#faq-258 to see how to resolve your issue.
Thanks, Vinny. But if nobody else has ever had that issue, why does the link you sent me show it listed under "Common Issues"? And the fix, is not exactly user friendly:
1. Go to HKEYLOCALMACHINE\Software\Mozy\options
2. Right-click in the blank space on the right side and select "New" then "String Value." Change the "New Value's" name to "tempdir."
3. Right-click the "tempdir" key and select "Modify." Set the value to the location you want Mozy to build its temporary files, click "OK," and close the registry editor.
4. Finally, open a command prompt (click your Start menu, then click "Run," type "cmd" and click "OK.") and type "net stop mozybackup" and hit enter. Then type "net start mozybackup" and hit enter. Then close the command prompt.
Ok, I'll try it, but I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I hope it works.
I didn't see a user discussion forum for Mozy… Odd. Might help with support issues.
Anyway, i'm only seeing 4kbyte (32kbit/second) throughput on my first backup on the Mac platform.
tcpdump on the en0 interface shows that the server side is throttling, i.e. my computer is sending as fast as it can and is waiting for server side to read from the connection. So, I'm wondering what's up with that and maybe others have seen the same problem?
speakeasy's bandwidth test shows over 400kbit/sec upload on my connection normally.
Unlimited backups need to be taken with a grain of salt if the upload speed is limited.
Vinny: Hi again, Len from Carbonite here. I’ve looked at the Mozy “Common Issues†link that you mentioned, http://mozy.com/support/supportfaq#faq-258. I’d like to point out that Carbonite does NOT have this problem because it doesn’t do a big batch encryption job like Mozy apparently does. Rather than storing all the encrypted files in your Windows temp file, Carbonite encrypts files one at a time as they are being transmitted. It keeps the encrypted image in memory so that it doesn’t impact the disk queue and slow down your PC. If the file is big, Carbonite breaks it into small chunks and encrypts each chunk with the encryption staying one chunk ahead of transmission so that the transmission is continuous. If you use the Windows PERFMON to monitor performance during the encryption, you’ll see that Carbonite generates a much smaller disk queue than Mozy does and uses less CPU as well.
With respect to EdV’s comment about large files, I haven’t tested Mozy’s handling of large files. I can tell you for sure, however, that Carbonite DOES handle large files at the block level. If you’re in the middle of backing up a big file and you abruptly pull the plug on your computer, when you reconnect Carbonite will pick up right where it left off – it will not start backing up the whole file again. If you select Start, Shut Down, Carbonite will offer to shut down your computer automatically as soon as the backup is finished. However, there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t just ignore Carbonite and shut off your computer any old time.
Sincerely,
Len Pallazola
Manager, Customer Service Systems
Carbonite, Inc.
http://www.carbonite.com
I noticed this problem also. The thing that bugs me is that the instructions oaren't really a solution for people that only have 1 hard drive. They just let you select a different folder to get filled up, but it's still the same drive. They're not very easy instructions either:
1. Go to HKEYLOCALMACHINE\Software\Mozy\options
2. Right-click in the blank space on the right side and select “New†then “String Value.†Change the “New Value’s†name to “tempdir.â€
3. Right-click the “tempdir†key and select “Modify.†Set the value to the location you want Mozy to build its temporary files, click “OK,†and close the registry editor.
4. Finally, open a command prompt (click your Start menu, then click “Run,†type “cmd†and click “OK.â€) and type “net stop mozybackup†and hit enter. Then type “net start mozybackup†and hit enter. Then close the command prompt.
Does anyone have a better solution than these steps?
Thanks,
D. Gardner
Hello Carbonite. Goodbye Mozy.
So I’ve got a very full disk on my development machine where I run Mozy and the temp file thing that everyone’s been talking about is indeed a nuisance at best. I eventually had to configure a network drive to hold the temp files. But I’ve also been running Carbonite on my laptop. Initially I wasn’t crazy about it because it didn’t let me schedule backups. It’s nice that it backs up continuously EXCEPT when it’s on my office network and I’m using my office network for something else. So I initially kept it turned off most of the time.
But the latest release is a huge improvement. I am quite impressed. In addition to scheduling that is similar to Mozy, they also have the idea of “blackout periodsâ€, meaning that you can back up all the time EXCEPT between the hours of x and y. This works for me. They also now have private key encryption, versioning that goes back 90 days vs. 30 for Mozy, and a number of other new features that basically bring them at least to parity with Mozy on the features front. Couple that with a much better restore process (including a handy restore wizard) and overall nice integration with Windows and no temp file problem, and I’m sold. Their customer support seems to have gotten a lot better too. They finally have a free phone number on their web site.
Miriam
Dave Friend,
This article below is for you and your exectuives…because you have no "real" customer service. You have a very effective customer irritation and purge system. There are no excuses, so don't respond. Phone calls, 72 hour email responses have resulted in recorded excuses regarding the wonderful popularity of Carbonite, so no one can help us and emails pledging a response in 72 hours without a response in 72 hours. You have our subscription money on two computers, so you can go back to promoting now on Rush Limbaugh to find more suckers ……Thanks for wasting our valuable time and the time of others.
Whatever happened to customer service?
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/services/2003-09-25-services-frontcover_x.htm
Maybe this will assist the Google bots to get Vinny's blog to the top of searches..
[... deleted by Vinny]
Paul,
I'd like to get to the bottom of the experience you've mentioned above. Our volumes are high right now, but there's no reason you should not have gotten a response at all. I know you asked us not to respond here, and I'll meet you half-way. I'll address your Carbonite problem, rather than comments about customer service in general.
Please send an e-mail to customersupport@carbonite.com with "ATTN: Len" in the subject line so that I can follow up with you directly.
Sincerely,
Len Pallazola
Manager, Customer Service Systems
Carbonite, Inc.
http://www.carbonite.com
Yay!
I was on hold with Carbonite for 20 minues trying to find someone to help me INSTALL it. Imagine if I needed help with recovery *sheesh*
While on hold I saw your post and I'm mozy-ing on over there to sign up.
xoxo
Sue
ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz
I just want to let you know that I spent over ONE hour on hold waiting for a live Carbonite support person when there was a server issue a couple of weeks ago. More on this can be read at
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/forums/index.cfm?action=showthread&threadID=319018&ForumID=2&sr=1
Personally, I like Carbonite and its ease of use. Today, I had to restore a file (using versions) and the restore to a prior version worked 100%. I had the occasion to later reboot my PC and then I got a Carbonite configuration error upon startup. I followed the instructions on how to do the reinstall. After doing so, I got a message about the registration failing. I tried to reinstall again - but I am still getting the "registration failed" message. Presently, I have no functioning Carbonite.
I am revisisting this blog and I agree with Paul Christy's post. I am unable to reach a live person at Carbonite, and this time around, I hung up after waiting about 15 minutes. I even tried to sign up for the priority support service (although I have an issue about paying for support when problems are caused by the vendor and not the customer) and guess what?? Oh, you know already! Very frustrating to be continually on hold.
I emailed customer support; and I forwarded a copy of that email to Dave Friend. So far, email support has been good and I trust I will be given instructions as to how to remedy the registration problem.
Stay tuned!
With kind regards,
Kathie
Hi, Dave Friend here. Carbonite's CEO. I want to apologize for the long hold times if you have been calling Carbonite customer support. During the month of Feb we added almost twice the number of new customers that we had projected. Since about 70% of all the customer calls we get take place in the first month of service, we have been struggling to keep up. We even took people from marketing and assigned them to customer support for the last couple of weeks to help with the load. We have a pretty sophisticated call center system, so I can see what the queues are in real time and I check them every day. I know that wait times for the last two weeks have averaged over 20 minutes.
When we saw signups ramping up last month, we immediately accelerated our customer support hiring. But it takes a month or so for a new rep to get trained and productive, so we are just now starting to see the improvements and in fact this week hold times are down significantly.
And lest you judge Carbonite too harshly, please note that Mozy Home does not offer ANY free telephone support — just email.
David Friend, CEO
Carbonite, Inc.
Kathy, Sue, and Paul,
I'm sorry all of you have had trouble getting through to customer support. As David mentioned in his post above, Carbonite's customer base has been growing rapidly, and while we've also been growing the customer support team to keep up with that demand, it does take time to get folks trained and ready to give the top-notch support needed when handling something as serious as your backup needs. As Kathy mentioned, we also had a number of folks who had difficulty reconnecting to our servers after we upgraded them last weekend, so the phones have been more busy than usual due to those calls as well.
I don't want any of you to be left hanging, though, and I'll be happy to arrange for a senior support engineer to call you if you could e-mail me your contact information and the best time to call. Please e-mail customersupport@carbonite.com with "ATTN: Len" in the subject line and mention this blog (so I know it's you) and I'll have someone give you a call at the time that is best for you.
Sincerely,
Len Pallazola
Manager, Customer Service Systems
Carbonite, Inc.
http://www.carbonite.com
Carbonite back up and running!!!
I received an email last night (3/19) and I would like to share it with the group (see below).
All I had to do was simply retry what I did yesterday morning and Carbonite is now back up and running. Fire is out!
I truly believe that David Friend, Len Pallazola, and all of the staff at Carbonite want to do right by the customer (as evidenced by their participation in this blog and by replies to email). Hopefully the issues of the long hold times for telephone support will be resolved soon. Easily attainable free live support will make a great product even better!
Until the next time….
With kind regards,
Kathie