Carbonite - I had no idea it was THIS bad!

For my home setup, I use CrashPlan.

However, my adult daughter uses Carbonite.

Over Christmas, I was visiting her and was performing a bit of maintenance on her PC. I discovered these disturbing facts about Carbonite (this is probably old news to Carbonite users, but people considering Carbonite may not realize all of this):

1. Selecting a folder for backup DOES NOT automatically backup every file in the folder. Those file types that are on Carbonite's default "don't back up" list are just silently ignored. This "bad boy" list includes all video file types. (You can individually select these files for backup, but it is the silent ignoring that I find reprehensible... it should at least WARN you!)

2. I knew that Carbonite throttles bandwidth for large (more than 200GB) users, but calling what they do "throttling" is like calling a glacier a throttled water fall. It is unusably slow, in my view. Further, they don't apply the throttling based on how much data you have uploaded, but based on how much data you have SELECTED for upload! This means if you are starting a new Carbonite installation, and you select 201GB for upload, your INITIAL upload will run at their snail-like pace. OTOH, if you select 199 GB for upload, that will proceed at more-or-less your ISP maximum data rate. What is their "throttled" rate? Suffice it to say it is measured in Kbps! They have obviously decided that rather than be honest with people and say they have a limit, they would rather continue to claim "unlimited" storage, but drive away anyone who actually needs to take advantage of "unlimited" storage.

I used to recommend Carbonite to people due to its reasonable cost and easy setup. No more.

This is for online backup?

I just backup to a HDD and take it off site. Leave it at your parents or a friends house. I dont think I could trust an online backup site.

ben_r_ wrote in post #15501664
This is for online backup?

Well, yeah; that's what Carbonite IS!

ben_r_ wrote in post #15501664
I just backup to a HDD and take it off site. Leave it at your parents or a friends house. I dont think I could trust an online backup site.

Then since you don't use cloud backup, I don't suppose you care how bad Carbonite is compared with other cloud services, right?

I didn't intend this to be yet another thread about backup in general.

I was only commenting on my surprise that Carbonite is particularly crappy in terms of performance and behavior. Their reliability is just fine.

I think Ben's point is that he doesn't trust a backup procedure (whatever media it relies on) that he doesn't control 100%.

I use Carbonite and it works just fine. Large backups are slow but 99% of the time it just works away in the background un noticed.

I use Chronosync and Time Machine for my Macs.

When I was looking for an online backup solution, I did my research and went against Carbonite for the first reason you listed. Much of what I backup on my system is video, .exe, and .iso files. I do not have time to manually select thousands of files for backup. I chose Crashplan a couple of years ago have have been very happy with it. I even have it backing up my Synology NAS.

RTPVid wrote in post #15501600
Further, they don't apply the throttling based on how much data you have uploaded, but based on how much data you have SELECTED for upload! This means if you are starting a new Carbonite installation, and you select 201GB for upload, your INITIAL upload will run at their snail-like pace. OTOH, if you select 199 GB for upload, that will proceed at more-or-less your ISP maximum data rate.

So you are aware once your uplink is saturated your downlink will suffer greatly even if your downlink is much greater. If these services used all of your available speed for the average person with a 1Mbps uplink they would find their connection unusable for anything else. There is a good and bad side to this and people using these services may want to watch videos over Wi-fi or might actually use their PC while the backup is in progress.

I have 12Mbps that peaks around 11.5Mbps which gets me 1.7MB/s PEAK with around 1.4MB/s AVERAGE. There are few if any services that would ever allow me to download at the full 1,400kbps available to me in theory. Even if they did my connection would become saturated which again would prevent me from doing anything else at that time. Maybe you just don't realize what that kbps actually represents in conversion (check this chart) terms but 600Kbps is around 5Mbps.

isoMorphic wrote in post #15502493
So you are aware once your uplink is saturated your downlink will suffer greatly even if your downlink is much greater. If these services used all of your available speed for the average person with a 1Mbps uplink they would find their connection unusable for anything else. There is a good and bad side to this and people using these services may want to watch videos over Wi-fi or might actually use their PC while the backup is in progress.

I don't notice a problem when my backup is in progress. Crashplan does have the ability to limit the upload speed and schedule the backup hours but I haven't needed to use it.

isoMorphic wrote in post #15502493
So you are aware once your uplink is saturated your downlink will suffer greatly even if your downlink is much greater. If these services used all of your available speed for the average person with a 1Mbps uplink they would find their connection unusable for anything else. There is a good and bad side to this and people using these services may want to watch videos over Wi-fi or might actually use their PC while the backup is in progress.

I have 12Mbps that peaks around 11.5Mbps which gets me 1.7MB/s PEAK with around 1.4MB/s AVERAGE. There are few if any services that would ever allow me to download at the full 1,400kbps available to me in theory. Even if they did my connection would become saturated which again would prevent me from doing anything else at that time. Maybe you just don't realize what that kbps actually represents in conversion (check this chart) terms but 600Kbps is around 5Mbps.

Hmmm.... Did you happen to notice I said Kbps and your "conversion" chart is in KB/sec? Care to hazard a guess what the difference is?

Jon wrote in post #15501973
I think Ben's point is that he doesn't trust a backup procedure (whatever media it relies on) that he doesn't control 100%.

Yea, kind of eluding to the idea that none should be used. I had never heard of the one the OP mentioned but yea I guess my comment could have been considered a bit OT...

ben_r_ wrote in post #15505095
Yea, kind of eluding to the idea that none should be used. I had never heard of the one the OP mentioned but yea I guess my comment could have been considered a bit OT...

How is an automated, off-site, encrypted backup used in addition to on-site backups a bad idea?

mike_d wrote in post #15505430
How is an automated, off-site, encrypted backup used in addition to on-site backups a bad idea?

Well, when it doesn't automatically and seamlessly back up everything you expect it to (which was OP's complaint about Carbonite). You sure it's backing everything up that you asked it to? If you haven't tried recovering everything from backup mechanism "A", you don't know if backup mechanism "A" really works. Doesn't matter whether it's local hardware-based, local software-based or cloud-based. Unless you regularly test it, you shouldn't rely on it.

Jon wrote in post #15505778
Well, when it doesn't automatically and seamlessly back up everything you expect it to (which was OP's complaint about Carbonite). You sure it's backing everything up that you asked it to? If you haven't tried recovering everything from backup mechanism "A", you don't know if backup mechanism "A" really works. Doesn't matter whether it's local hardware-based, local software-based or cloud-based. Unless you regularly test it, you shouldn't rely on it.

I get weekly email reports showing how much data has been backed up. I periodically spot check that my newest Lightroom folders have been uploaded. I have downloaded and tested various backed-up files. I'm pretty sure its doing what its supposed to.

mike_d wrote in post #15505846
I get weekly email reports showing how much data has been backed up. I periodically spot check that my newest Lightroom folders have been uploaded. I have downloaded and tested various backed-up files. I'm pretty sure its doing what its supposed to.

This ^^ I frequently check my backups and they are always up to date. After I upload new files to my computer they are backed up within minutes. Ive had several external backup drives fail, backup discs get lost, stolen, burned, ruined ect. This is the most fail safe way I have found to back up my important documents yet. I still backup to other devices and discs but Carbonite is the only backup that has not failed me ever. When my one year old computer failed and I lost tens of thousands of pics of my daughter, my deployments and all my memories in between Carbonite saved the day in a big way, I got back 100% of my lost files when I got my new computer.