Carbonite

Carbonite Review: Mac OS X Online Cloud Backup

 
Sign up for Carbonite
Rating:
Bottom Line:
Excellent and comprehensive online backup with easy remote file access, exclusive discount
Full Review:
[Editor's note: NextAdvisor visitors can combine our exclusive discount with Carbonite's multi-year discounts for even more savings. Refer to the table below to see how the savings add up.]

Home Plan
Discounted Price:
Carbonite Discount Our Discount Total Discount
1-Year: $53.10 0% 10% 10%
2-Year: $103.55 8% 5% 12%
3-Year: $149.00 16% 0% 16%


Introduction

Carbonite is comprehensive and robust online backup service that will not wow you in terms of special features, but will keep your important files backed up. It's a simple program that runs invisibly in the background. As with all online backup services, the initial backup will take a while. Depending on your Internet connection speed and the amount of data on your hard drive, it could take a day or more. Your computer is completely usable during this time, but you'll need to keep it on and connected. Subsequent backups will take less time as Carbonite will only need to save new files and previously backed-up files that have changed.



Backup

By default, Carbonite backs up your documents, email, photos, and music. We like that Carbonite takes care of emails automatically, since many online backup services don't, requiring the user to manually locate these files and add them to a backup schedule. However, it won't back up files larger than 4GB unless you tell it to.

Restore & Remote File Access

In the event of a crash or any other data loss, you simply use the downloadable Carbonite InfoCenter to restore your lost data. But Carbonite's usefulness goes beyond disaster recovery. While we generally talk about an online backup service as a remedy for catastrophic data loss, there's another feature users will love and use much more often, and that's versioning. Carbonite will automatically save up to twelve versions of every file you back up. This allows you to roll back to a previous iteration of any file to recover lost changes. It's like the ultimate "undo." Anyone who's ever made unalterable changes to a large text or graphics file will recognize the value in this feature.



TUTORIAL: How to Restore Your Computer with Carbonite for the Mac


Carbonite can also be used to access files from any computer that has an Internet connection. Simply log in to the remote access section of carbonite.com and you'll see all your files, just as you would if you were looking at your hard drive (minus the programs). It's a good feature, and it's one you'll find with many online backup services, although it's not as evolved as it is in a product like SugarSync. You can't, for instance, use it to securely share files with others. They're for your eyes only. A small knock against an otherwise great service.



Pricing

Carbonite offers unlimited storage for a single computer for $53.10 per year (after discount), roughly $4.42 per month. Two- and three-year subscriptions can bring the price down to an equivalent of $4.31 per month. Unlimited backup is a great deal, but note that Carbonite limits you to backing up a single computer. If you'd like to backup multiple computers, you need to purchase a subscription for every computer you need to backup.

In regard to HIPAA compliance: Online backup services cannot legally state that they are officially HIPAA compliant. However, Carbonite contains all of the security features to protect data that is transmitted to and from their servers. Carbonite follows strict guidelines to meet factors that go into HIPAA compliance. If you want to know what HIPAA is, please visit our FAQ page.

Conclusion

For pure online backup, Carbonite is a great bargain. While it may not have all the fancy features other online backup providers have, the setup is simple, fuss free, and comprehensive. You'll just set it and forget it—until the day you need to restore your files.

Sign up for Carbonite | Compare to Other Mac Online Cloud Backup

 
Service Details:

Cheapest Price:$4.14/mo
(w/ 3 year plan)
Free Trial/
Discount:
10% off 1 yr;
12% off 2 yrs;
16% off 3 yrs
Gigabytes (GB) of Storage Included:Unlimited
# of Computers Backed Up:1;
add'l subscription per add'l computer
External Drive Backup:No

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