Carbonite Online Backup
Ever so nearly a great service
I’ve just been stung by the otherwise great Carbonite online backup service. Actually I should have said there I’ve been stung by my own lack of research 
. I’ve been running Carbonite for just over a year now backing up in the region of 70Gb of data from my machine. I’ve also had a Windows Home Server sitting under the stairs quietly making my life a little less stressful (in September last year it pulled me out of a very VERY deep hole, but that’s another post). A couple of weeks ago a nice little bubble popped up asking me to renew the service, I dutifully complied.
After due consideration, and parting with $50 I figured it was high time I rationalised my storage. It would be far better to store my 70Gb of data on WHS instead of my client PC, I could then access it from any machine in the house/office as well as from anywhere I have access to a web browser – pretty neat and very convenient.
So after coping all the data across to a shiny new ‘Jobs’ folder I downloaded the software, installed it on WHS and set up the relevant folders to backup. Set and forget that’s the beauty of Carbonite, stress levels still at an acceptably low level, smugness factor, well, pretty damn high actually…
…until that is I remote desktop into the WHS to setup a new share just yesterday. On the surface everything looks all kittens and picnics, the little Carbonite icon in the task bar is reassuringly green to let me know everything is fine*, so I move on and do my business. Just as I’m about to logout I get a phone call and I need to reference a file in the Jobs folder I’m still RD’d in so start digging through the files on the server box and every single file and folder has an orange Carbonite dot, NOT a good sign.
After finishing my call I start investigating the problem, a simple right click shows that the ‘file is pending backup when accessible due to permissions’. That’s every single file in my backup path, I HAVE NO BACKUP!
Time for a Google search.
Abridged version: I’m stuffed.
Detailed version: Carbonite doesn’t directly support WHS although it does apparently work if all your storage is on internal drives. The killer is they don’t support external drives (on any OS) and the big advantage of WHS is that you just keep plugging in USB drives and WHS sees them all as one great big lump of Gigabytes.
So it’s time to look at other options and so far JungleDisk is coming out on top, more expensive but it directly supports WHS and it backs up to Amazon S3 which is up there on the ‘trust’ stakes.
*You can’t blame Carbonite for not working on my particular setup, the details are there if you actually read them but the FAIL: in my view is that the task bar icon stayed green.
9 Responses to “Carbonite Online Backup”
Leave a Reply
About This Post
Similar Posts
Spread the word
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/carbonite-stacks-the-deck-on-amazon/?scp=2&sq=pogue&st=Search
while i understand your specific issues with carbonite, there are other, more systemic reasons to be hesitant to use this company for your backup. check out the link to the ny times above and you’ll see what i’m saying
That’s an interesting read
However I’ll stand by my original statement that the service I received during the first 12 month was fine. I backed up without incident and I had need to recover some files which ran smoothly (although, to qualify, it was only a small percentage of my total backup).
With regard to both Belkin and Carbonite – I really surprised it took so long for companies to start doing this sort of thing.
I suspect that the Carbonite’s success in adding new customers has impacted its ability to provide the same level of customer support and technical success as it did previously. This is a classic problem that many firms deal with — at one scale, a modest support team can handle all request and a basic technology infrastructure can manage the load. At larger scale, these things start to break down unless they are managed and designed very well respectively. I can’t say for certain, but Carbonite’s marketing success may be the main driver of its current problems.
With regard to your current issue, depending on the amount of data you are trying to store, you may want to check out ElephantDrive (see my disclaimer, below). The Home Plus and Pro plans will accommodate external drives (as additional devices, per the plans).
Disclaimer: I may be biased in both my observations of Carbonite and my recommendation of ElephantDrive, as I am part of the team at ElephantDrive.
Yes that could very well be the case. It is worrying that companies do not appear to planning ahead sufficiently. If a company does not even have plans in place to cope if they are successful how we, the consumer, can be expected to have confidence that they can deal with a disaster. During my trawl for information it was clear that Carbonite had actually lost some or their customer’s data, when you are selling a backup service then losing data is simply inexcusable.
However, I think we as the consumer have to take a small proportion of the blame for;
a) Not asking the right questions in the first place, and
b) Not actually reading the information the companies do make available to us, I for instance, just paid my money and did not bother to check that the service would work on a Windows Home Server setup. That’s my bad, and now I have either wasted $50 or a day of my weekend re-organising how my data is stored.
It’s my opinion (formed right this minute!) that companies selling Cloud Services should start making available their Disaster Recovery Plans, that way I could make an informed decision on whether that company would take sufficient care of my data.
I’m currently using Handy Backup (the one downloaded at .net, not a .com program) and their online backup service. Works with WHS fine.
If you are considering Carbonite please take note that they have just been caught reviewing their own products on Amazon. What’s worse is they’ve known ths was going on for months and have not bothered to do anything about it. Only now after the New York Times exposed them did they remove the fraudulent reviews but all hell is breaking loose around them. Get a better picture and a nice cartoon here:
http://www.pcdisorder.com/2009/01/carbonite-belkin-pc-frustrations.html
I am now in running battle with Carbonite. No fewer than 23 emails and no closer to even being able to ASK my questions. Thus far, I have received the sugary replies and PROMISES to contact me.
WELL, 4 WEEKS later and I know the David.friend@Carbonite.com address well and 6 others.
It has cost Carbonite probably 30 times as much money to HASSLE me per their “PAUL”, etc.,
than if they had just let me ask my questions.
I am a HUGE Admirer of GoDaddy.com (no business affiliation except I am a customer) and the President Bob Parsons has built a huge business and has done so by ALWAYS having Customer Service EASILY there BY PHOE when you need. Mr. Parsons demands 100% service to his customers and it has paid off nicely. The ads on the SuperBowl cost millions!
Sadly, CARBONITE and David Friend (if he exists) canot hold a candle to such service.
I will try to get my questions answered for one more week then I will go the route of the folks that discovered CARBONITE employees were writing phony “references and feedbacks” on Amazon, etc.
I am quite haevy in the media field …. stand by
CORRECTIONS. I am now in running battle with Carbonite. No fewer than 23 emails and no closer to even being able to ASK my questions. Thus far, I have received the sugary replies and PROMISES to contact me.
NEW _ THEY DID TRY TO CALL ONE TIME – I RETURNED THE CAL WHICH BECAME ANOTHER NIGHTMARE _ STILL NOTHING!
WELL, 4 WEEKS later and I know the David.friend@Carbonite.com address well and 6 others.
It has cost Carbonite probably 30 times as much money to HASSLE me per their “PAUL”, etc.,
than if they had just let me ask my questions.
I am a HUGE Admirer of GoDaddy.com (no business affiliation except I am a customer) and the President Bob Parsons has built a huge business and has done so by ALWAYS having Customer Service EASILY there BY PHONE when you need it. Mr. Parsons demands 100% service to his customers and it has paid off nicely. GoDaddy ads on the SuperBowl cost millions!
Sadly, CARBONITE and David Friend (if he exists) cannot hold a candle to such service.
I will try to get my questions answered for one more week then I will go the route of the folks that discovered CARBONITE employees were writing phony “references and feedbacks” on Amazon, etc. CARBONITE is slowly hurting itself and their success is a two-edged sword.
Within 18 months watch their competition grow in proportion to CARBONITE shooting itself in the foot.
Sorry about the typos but I am well past 65.
I am quite heavy in the media field …. stand by
hello, thank for this latest information. Therefore, I would like to ask for your allowance to add some of this information in my blog. Of course, I will provide a link to your website, as a source of my mentioned information.