Marg Carbonite

easy install and setup, simple to change options

no way to keep it from using large amounts of OS resources (CPU and RAM

learn how to disable it except when using backup

low level sophistication in users who require a complete fail-safe backup utility

I had no opportunity to like anything.After 5 years of paying for Carbonite backups, I had call to use it when my trusty pc crashed. I was asked to reset my password when I tried to log on, and subsequently not permitted to reset it until I answered security questions that, quite frankly, I could not answer unless I was actually logged into my account. After 2 attempts to work with customer service and getting nowhere,, I paid someone to pull the files off my old hard drive and cancelled Carbonite service. Ironically they gave me no issue about questioning my identity as the account holder when I called, lol. I mean, I could have been anyone. They also said they could get me access to my account now if I wanted. Of course they could, they could have done that all along, and they chose not to.

I'll be keeping my backups on Google drive and flash drives from now on. Lesson learned.

After 5 years of paying for Carbonite backups, I had call to use it when my trusty pc crashed. I was asked to reset my password when I tried to log on, and subsequently not permitted to reset it until I answered security questions that, quite frankly, I could not answer unless I was actually logged into my account. After 2 attempts to work with customer service and getting nowhere,, I paid someone to pull the files off my old hard drive and cancelled Carbonite service. Ironically they gave me no issue about questioning my identity as the account holder when I called, lol. I mean, I could have been anyone. They also said they could get me access to my account now if I wanted. Of course they could, they could have done that all along, and they chose not to.

I'll be keeping my backups on Google drive and flash drives from now on. Lesson learned.

If you value ease of access, do anything else.

None.

Nothing positive from this experience, unable to provide data restoration from the cloud backups. Software failed to update without admin login.

Installation, management, restore, service

Do as many trials with EVERY vendor you can before making this choice

Carbonite created more problems than they ever solved. They did provide a hard drive copy of our shared drive when we were hit with a Ransonware attack, which we had to pay for, so I guess that is a positive

I like that the product backs up your files automatically.

Poor Restore- files are blow up or lost during the restore process. I spend a significant amount of time searching for documents after a restore. I find many of them and manually restore the files but some documents are not restored.

Server not available due to maintenance- company does maintenance during business hours, so when you are having a technical issue and you need access to files you may not be able to obtain them which defeats the purpose.

None . It doesn't save time as you have to search for documents that end up in different files after the restore process. Also, the company does regular maintenance during business hours which completely shuts down the server, so you can not access any files during that time. The current maintenance will impact access to Carbonite's Cloud for more than 24 hours. So what is the point?

PROS & CONS

What are the best aspects of this product?

Pricing was a draw but they were not clear that thunderbolt drives were not supported.

What aspects are problematic or could work better?

They were not clear that thumberboltndrives were not supported

Are you a current user of this product?

Yes