| Retail Price for 1 Year: | $59.00 |
| 1 Year Plan Savings (10%): | $5.90 |
| Your Price for 1 Year: | $53.10 |
| Retail Price for 2 Years: | $118.00 |
| 2 Year Plan Savings (12%): | $14.45 |
| Your Price for 2 Years: | $103.55 |
| Retail Price for 3 Years: | $177.00 |
| 3 Year Plan Savings (21%): | $38.00 |
| Your Price for 3 Years: | $139.00 |
Carbonite at a Glance
Our Rating
3.75 / 5 stars
Price:
- 15 Day Trial: $Free
- One Year Subscription: $59.00.
Click here to save 10% on Carbonite - Two Year Subscription: $109.00.
Click here to save 8% on Carbonite - Three Year Subscription: $139.00.
Click here to save 21% on Carbonite - One Year Subscription: $99.00.
Click here to save 10% on Carbonite - Two Year Subscription: $189.00.
Click here to save 5% on Carbonite - Three Year Subscription: $269.00.
Click here to save 9% on Carbonite - One Year Subscription: $149.00.
Click here to save 10% on Carbonite - Two Year Subscription: $279.00.
Click here to save 6% on Carbonite - Three Year Subscription: $399.00.
Click here to save 11% on Carbonite - Support for Windows and Mac
- Easy sign up.
- Easy download and set up.
- Unlimited backup storage space.
- Free trial with unlimited space.
- Backs up locked and open files.
- Fast.
- Will recover old versions of files.
- Data encryption.
- Private encryption key.
- Continuous backups.
- HomePlus and HomePremier plans support external hard drives.
- Available in eight languages.
- IPhone application now available.
- Offers web access to files.
- Must purchase by the year, no month to month is available.
- Does not distinguish between certain files such as gif, jpg, etc. Does not understand all are picture files.
- Does not backup video files by default.
- Throttles data. 35GB – 200GB at 512 kbps. 200GB+ at 100 kbps
- Carbonite Home Earns Coveted "Parent Tested Parent Approved" (PTPA) Seal of Approval
- Carbonite Offers Tips to Keep Holiday Memories Safe
- Online Backup Gift Giving
- Has Carbonite had a Privacy Breach?
- Carbonite Launches HomePlus and HomePremier Plans and New Features
- Go to the Carbonite website at Carbonite.com. You can sign up for a free trial at the Carbonite website and try the program before you buy it. Unlike many similar free trials, you do not need to enter a credit card number to try Carbonite. Simply sign up, provide your name and email address and get ready to back up your files.
- Wait for your confirmation email from Carbonite, then log into your Carbonite account using the user name and password you created when you signed up for the free trial.
- Click the install option to start installing Carbonite on your computer. Accept the default options for the installation. This will make it easier to troubleshoot your system and resolve any issues you might experience with the program.
- Reboot your computer when prompted. Rebooting your computer will complete the installation and save your system settings.
- Look for the Carbonite lock icon on the bottom right hand corner of the system tray. This is your indication that Carbonite is up and running, and ready to protect your vital files whenever you are connected to the Internet.
- Locate the Carbonite lock icon in your system tray. This icon will be located in the lower right hand corner of your screen.
- Double-click the lock icon to open the Carbonite Info Center. Click on the Options tab to view or change your backup settings.
- Choose either manual or automatic. By default Carbonite backs up your flies automatically any time your computer is connected to the Internet, but you can also change the settings to manual and start a backup whenever you wish. The manual option can be very useful for dial-up connections, since the automatic option could slow your connection down.
- Review the list of files that will automatically be backed up when your computer is connected to the Internet. By default Carbonite backs up all your user files—if you wish to include any other files just check those files on the list.
- Click the Set Options tab in the Carbonite Info Center to schedule specific times for your backups. Click the Backup Schedule tab and choose one of the following:
- Update Backup Automatically – this is the option recommended by Carbonite, since it takes the guesswork out of backing up your files. With this option a new backup will be created within 10 minutes of your making a change to that file. This option provides optimal protection against data loss.
- Update Backup at Specific Times – with this option the Carbonite online backup will run at a specific time each day. All files that have changed since the last backup will have a new backup file created.
- Do Not Backup Between the Hours Of – this is a useful option if you have a slow Internet connection. With this option Carbonite will not run during the time period you specify.
- Double-click on the Carbonite Backup Drive shortcut located on your computer desktop. Double-click the Backed Up Files icon to sse a lsst of all the files nad folders Carbonite has backed up. This window will be very similar in appearance to the familiar Windows Explorer window.
- Locate the file or folder you wish to restore. Right-click on that file or folder and choose Restore from the menu. Carbonite will restore the file or folder to its original location.
- You can restore the folder or file to a new location by right clicking and choosing Restore To from the list. You can then browse to the folder where you wish to restore the file. This can be a useful feature if you have multiple copies of files with the same names.
- Search for additional files to restore by double-clicking on the lock icon. This icon is located in your system tray at the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
- Wait for the Carbonite Info Center to open and click on the Restore Files tab. Click the Search for Files to Restore option to search for files. Enter the search criteria you want to use in that window and click OK when you are done.
- Check the box next to the files you want to restore. The check box will appear next to each file in the search results window.
- Confirm that you wish to restore the selected files, then click OK to begin the restoration process. You will see a pop-up message when the files have been successfully restored.
- Restore all your files at once if your hard drive has crashed, or if you have changed computers and need to load your files on to the new hardware. To restore all your files, open the Restore Wizard by right-clicking on the lock icon and choosing Recover Mode.
- Go to the Restore Files tab and choose Restore All of My Files. Confirm that you want to restore all of your files and click OK to begin the restoration process. Depending on how much data you have to restore, this process could take some time. You will see a pop-up message when the process is complete.
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Full Carbonite Review
If a good online backup service is what you need to make your life easier and more secure then you want to look at Carbonite. Carbonite has a free trial without providing a credit card, so you can truly learn if this is the service that will work for your particular situation.
For those that really want a backup system that needs no hands, the automatic backup features works wonders. Of course, the first backup will take awhile according to how much you have to backup, but once this is done, you will not notice the backup process. The system backups your files while the computer is idle.
The download and setup is one of the easiest and within about 3 minutes, you will be ready to start backing up your files. You can easily choose the drives, folders, etc… you have on your computer you wish to backup and Carbonite does the rest. You will have an icon in your system tray that will help you simple backup files as needed.
Installation
Installing and configuring Carbonite is easy, but it is important to use the right procedures. Installing Carbonite properly will ensure that your vital files are there when you need them. To install Carbonite online backup on your own computer, just follow these simple steps.
Once Carbonite has been installed on your computer, your files will automatically be backed up every time you are connected to the Internet. And every time you make changes to a file, Carbonite will automatically back up that file all over again, helping to ensure that the most recent version of each file is backed up safely and securely in the Carbonite offsite vault.
Backup
After you have installed Carbonite online backup on your computer, the safe and secure backup of your files is just a few mouse clicks away. To set the backup options and back up your important files with Carbonite, just follow these simple steps:
In order to know which files have been backed up, you will notice small dots in various color depending on the type of file, document, or if the file is waiting to be backed up. If there is no dot, then the file has not been backed up and is not waiting for the backup process.
Restore
Restoring your files is just as simple as backing up your files. To start the restore process in Carbonite, just follow these simple steps:
Other Features
Carbonite offers several mobile applications for easy access to your files. There are currently mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry. These mobile applications make it easy to get access to you backed up files to download them to your mobile device, open your files on your mobile device and easily share the file via email.
Conclusion
Carbonite is one of the simplest online backup services you can use. Along with being so simple to use, all of your items will be encrypted before they are sent to the server for backup.
The price of Carbonite is $59.00 per year for unlimited backup and storage of your precious files.
Carbonite Offer Code
To take advantage of our special Carbonite offer code simply click the link below. The special subscription price will be automatically applied.
15 Comments
I updated the review to reflect a price increase and the new Mac support. Let me know if I missed anything.
A HUGE ‘CON’ to this product is that it STILL does NOT support external drives. Many of my most important files are stored on my 4 external hard drives. Product is useless to me without this support. Suggest you point this out in your cons list.
Thanks for pointing this out. This flaw makes Carbonite useless to me as well.
The Windows version will also only backup partitions formatted as FAT32 or NTFS. (If anyone can find this info on their website, I will be impressed.) Presumably the Mac version will do HFS Plus, but I have no idea if it will do any others, including UFS or indeed the two the Windows version will. (Again, if you can find this info on their website…)
Why it should care about which file system I want to use, I don’t know. (If it will work with FAT, it should work with anything!)
I also don’t know why it insists it will only work with file systems considered too poor for Carbonite to use itself. (See their blog – www.Carbonite.com/blog/post/2008/05/HP-Upline-and-the-challenge-of-large-scale-backup.aspx – when they asked Microsoft why NTFS kept crashing for them, they were told it wasn’t designed to have large numbers of files on it!)
I have it, I like it, but this still grates.
I did not know that it only supports FAT32 and NTFS. How do you find that out? I suppose that is the majority of Windows computers but I can see how that would be annoying.
Thanks for that information. I am sure it will be useful for someone.
Trying it
I dual boot into Windows and Linux. The Ext2fs.sys driver from http://www.fs-driver.org gives Windows a kernel mode file system driver to read Ext2 and Ext3 partitions – they appear exactly like any other drive in Windows – so I can read/write to the Linux partitions from Windows (and of course can read/write the Windows ones in Linux). Very useful.
But Carbonite refused to have anything to do with them. So I asked their tech support who (finally) told me the awful truth: it’s deliberately limited to those two file systems. They cannot or will not tell me WHY, despite repeated invitations to do so. There are clearly no technical reasons – if it can work with something as primitive as FAT, it should work with anything.
So now, with more effort than should be necessary because NTFS is missing some useful features, I have Linux use NTFS for its /home partition (i.e. all the user’s files).
(Oh, I had to ask about the Mac version. Apparently “Of the default available File Systems in Mac OS X 10.5, Carbonite supports all of the Mac OS Extended variations, but not the FAT filesystem.” What that means, I’m not quite sure as the Apple site doesn’t exactly consider ‘which file systems will it work with?’ to be a question worth answering either.)
I have used Carbonite for about a year, and then learned that it is strictly a back-up service, rather than an online storage/archiving service. Files deleted from the computer will after a while also disappear from the Carbonite back-up. This for me is sufficient of a drawback to look out for another service (I’m checking out Memopal at the moment).
This is how the majority of services work actually. As storage gets cheaper perhaps we will see more services offering archiving service.
I have used Carbonite for years and thank God, I have never had a hard drive crash, yet. My one complaint is it takes a long time to get a full backup loaded into their storage.
I have just finished testing Carbonite, Backblaze, and Mozy…
My biggest beef with Carbonite is that it will restore deleted files; which is great when you accidentally deleted one and need to get it back, but not great when you need to restore an entire folder or drive. How it works is that all files you deleted in the last 30 days will always be restored. Imagine if you just re-organized, or deleted a bunch of old files on your hard drive, Carbonite does a backup, then your hard drive crashed and you need to restore your files. You would have a mess of files to sort through, trying to remember was this old? did I delete it already?
For this reason, I went with Mozy – which can show you exactly what files were on your hard drive at any restore point in the last 30 days – and let your restore just those files.
Since I mentioned Backblaze – i’ll just say that I did not choose them based on their restore method. To download files, you need to request the files you want to download, wait for their servers to compress them into one zip file, then download that file. I prefer both Carbonite and Mozy‘s method of restore over this. I didn’t even get around to determining if it can restore to any point in time, without deleted files.
Carbonite, in its filing, wrote that it was founded in 2005, and that it has yet to make a profit. Losses have risen from $17.4 million in 2008 to $25.8 million in 2010, but losses for the first six months of 2011 declined 29 percent from the same period of 2010 to $10.1 million.
You can read about it at: http://www.crn.com/news/storage/231002967/Carbonite-prices-ipo-at-106-million-outlines-business-risks.htm;jsessionid=zHKDrpTa0QmLOtqM689i-g**.ecappj03
I fear that they may rise their prices
Thanks for that article. It is certainly a possibility that Carbonite could raise their rates. They did raise them slightly earlier this year.
Certainly running a cloud backup service is expensive, but it is possible to be profitable. Backblaze stated that they are profitable and cash flow positive. I believe I read that CrashPlan is as well. If those two can be why can’t Carbonite be at over 1 million customers?
Thank you so much for having this review and offer code. I was looking everywhere to try and save some money on my Carbonite subscription but none of the codes I found elsewhere worked. Clicked yours and it came up right away with the discount when it loaded the Carbonite website. Thanks again!
I was reading a review on Carbonite and read that if a file name has spaces or special characters in it, you cannot remotely access the file. Contacted Carbonite and found out that this was the case…if a file name has spaces or special characters, you cannot access the file remotely. Just an FYI…
I had not heard of that issue but I wonder if other services have that problem as well. Might have to test a few out and see what happens. Surprised a space would cause problems since so many people have spaces in file names. Thanks for the heads up.