![]() What are the consequences of this? If important files are not backed up, and you then have a disaster and restore from an incomplete Carbonite backup, you can end with a number of unpredictable problems, including: While in most cases you can correct this, the process is laborious and time-consuming. However, by default and without ever actually telling you, Carbonite might choose not to back up files and folders that might be critically important to you.Thus, any online backup service should focus on backing up all of your data.And, since it's a waste of time for any online backup service to back up your operating system or programs (because such software cannot easily be restored), Carbonite reasonably excludes those files and folders from your backup.By default, Carbonite does a good job backing up regular files (documents, spreadsheets, pictures, and a few others) that are located in regular user folders and subfolders (Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Videos, and a few others).The reality: What I have observed I have helped many clients both set up new Carbonite accounts and review existing Carbonite installations, and every single time I have observed the following: Unfortunately, the real story is more complicated. ![]() It does a big initial backup, and then incrementally backs up changes you make as you work, as long as your internet connection is working. That's it! Carbonite claims to do all the rest, backing up your computer over your internet connection, so you don't have to do anything else. Start a free trial or pay for the subscription up front, and.Pick the type of backup service you will need: One user computer vs.The language in Carbonite's marketing and the experience of using it can give you the impression that all you have to do is: "Back up every photo, document, video and song without worry"."Carbonite cloud backup protects your computer-automatically"."Carbonite Safe provides automatic and continuous cloud backup for computer files"."Automatic, unlimited cloud backup for computers"."From family photos to customer data, automatically protect everything in the cloud"."Automatic cloud backup for your files, photos and more".The claim: Carbonite is easy, automatic backup for "everything" on your computer At first glance, Carbonite sounds very easy to use to back up your computer to their online server, especially when you read statements like the following on their web site: Note: As of this writing, CrashPlan has decided to focus on the small business, education, and enterprise markets, so all existing "CrashPlan for Home" subscriptions for consumer-level backup will end on October 23, 2018, with discounted conversion options to Carbonite or CrashPlan for Small Business. I have not investigated Carbonite's online backup competitors (Mozy, IDrive, Backblaze, Acronis Cloud Backup, etc.) to see how they compare regarding these issues.I have not yet explored these issues in depth on Macintosh, nor with multiple computers, nor their business version, but I imagine that they are similar. Most of my experience with Carbonite has been with the least-expensive, consumer-level service on single computers running Microsoft Windows.So, unless you (or someone you trust) spends the time to carefully review every data file and folder on your computer to see whether Carbonite is actually backing it up, you cannot be sure that it is doing your backup correctly. This might exclude a number of very important files on your computer from your backup, including Microsoft Outlook email database files, as well as data stored by less-common programs, which could render those programs useless if you ever restore your data from Carbonite. However, if you're currently using it (or if you are considering it for your backup needs), then you should know that it has the following potentially major problem: By default, Carbonite does not back up a number of less-common file types, nor many files stored in secondary folders, nor files larger than 4GB. It is very good at backing up common file types (documents, pictures, spreadsheets, etc.) stored in regular user folders (Desktop, Documents, Pictures, etc.). The Problem with Carbonite, a Popular Online Backup Service Summary Carbonite is a very popular service that provides online ("cloud") computer backup with unlimited storage for an annual subscription fee. ![]() Practical Computer Advice from Martin Kadansky ![]()
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