Review of Carbonite Online Data Backup Service
Carbonite, which is one of the popular online data backup service providers, offers unlimited data backup storage. But, just because this company is popular, does it mean this company provides complete data backup solution? Read this detailed review to find out, is Carbonite right choice for your backup needs.
Carbonite is one of the well-established online backup service providers that provides you with unlimited data backup storage. It gives unlimited data backup for one-time fee for business users as well as home users, and users can remotely backup their valuable data to one of its storage servers, providing a safe and secure safekeeping of all-important data. The firm offers three personal plans to select from, as well as two business class plans targeted mainly for business users, which makes it easy for users to get exactly the plan they searching for. Unlike many of its rivals, the company doesn't provide you any short-term data backup options. However, you would get discounts if you subscribe for multiple years rather than one. Of course, it is one of the popular online backup service providers now available on the market. But just because the company is popular, does it mean this is the right choice for your backup needs?Interface and Features
Using Carbonite would be easy and friendly experience even for those who aren't technically inclined. The installation process is actually very straightforward. Carbonite will automatically finish the installation process once you provide your computer with a name and kind of computer you are backing up. Talking about its user-interface, it has got a clean user panel, where backup and restore options are laid out in easy-to-understand way so that even novice users can also easily work around.
One of the handiest features provided by the company is unlimited data backup, which is available for all Personal plans. Once the software is successfully installed in your computer, and when you open it, Carbonite immediately prompts you to start backing up your data. By default, the application backs up only your media files, email, settings, documents and desktop files. But you may override these default settings to manage more of your backup needs. Carbonite handles email messages automatically, since most of the backup services don't, requiring the computer owner to find these files manually and include them to a backup schedule. Even so, it won't back up files more than 4GB unless you instruct it to. It also lets you know what kinds of files are not automatically backed up, but, these files can be manually selected and added to backup schedule.
It can back up your data continuously or on a schedule. By default, the software is configured to automatically update backup data whenever it finds any modification in backed up directories or files. But you can change it to run a backup once in a week or update backup changes during specific hours. The backup process runs in the background, and progress bar will let you know the estimated time to complete the operation.
Talking about the performance, the application only works when your computer is in idle state, so you won't feel any drop in system performance while you busy using other applications. Generally, this backup process doesn't affect the performance of your system, but the primary backup process can be too sluggish if you have a lot of data to backup. As Carbonite provides you with unlimited data backup, storage capacity won't be an concern for you, but if you've got lot of media files to backup, upload time may be.
So better modify the backup settings and make sure only the files that are too essential to you are backed up.
Like many other popular online backup services, Carbonite now offers remote accessibility. With this impressive new functionality, now Carbonite users can access their backed up files by signing into their account via company's official website. Whether they are on business tour or in the office, now users can safely get those backed up files over the Internet-anywhere, anytime.
Coming to the data security, Carbonite uses 128-bit Blowfish encryption method to protect data while transferring over the Internet. The company also uses multiple storage servers to store user data so that if any of one server fails there will be no delay or break in backup or restore process. All data centers of Carbonite are subject to the best security access to make sure that no unauthorized can have access to any private data of their users.
Carbonite lets you keep outdated versions of files and folders for only up to three months. Though, it won't keep every individual version of such files over three months. If you delete a file or directory from your system, you have 30 days to retrieve it back, before it permanently gets deleted from company's backup servers. Carbonite also provides easy restore options in its application. When you need to restore data, it provides you a view to the cloud backup via Windows Explorer folder. For starters, it also gives you some guidelines on how to restore the data from the cloud backup. There you get the options to search for a specific file, or just restore everything.Price
The company offers three affordable plans for Home users - Basic, Plus and Prime. All these plans offer unlimited backup storage and almost same handy features. The basic plan costs $60 per year and it is available for both Mac and Windows operating systems. Unlike the Basic plan, the Plus and Prime plan aren't available for Mac Operating system. Windows users can upgrade to Plus plan, which comes with the support for mirror image and external hard-drive backup, and it costs $100 per year. Finally, there is a Prime plan, which provides additional features such as support for the Automatic video backup and Courier recovery support, and it costs $150 per year.
For business users, Pro, Server and Appliance plans are available for $270, $800, $1200 respectively. Before buy any of these plans, if you want to try it, there is 15-day free trial for home users and 30-day free trial for business users. But, with trial account, Carbonite only backups emails, pictures, settings and documents. Conclusion
Carbonite is one of the popular unlimited online backup services you can get today. It also offers mobile applications for Android, iOS and Blackberry handsets, which let users to access their files even while they are on the move. It features easy-to-use interface, and it is actually designed to make the backup service user-friendly for users at all technical levels. Unlimited backup with every plan, an user friendly backup and restoration interface, affordable price and mobile app support, Carbonite is a good option for anyone with a lot of videos, pictures and music files. But I would not recommend you this if you have limited internet usage plan or poor internet connection.
