Carbonite Review

I actually heard about Carbonite on a radio show. It sounded interesting to me because I didn’t have a back-up hard drive. I always stressed about the fact that all of my information on my laptop could be deleted at any time. I checked out the software as soon as I heard about it!

With the option to do a free trial and not have to put in my credit card, I couldn’t pass it up. Plus, I had been seriously considering a remote backup service like xDrive after losing data on more than one occasion. (I was sticking with backup DVDs to save some money.)

So when I thought about it, I was probably spending $5 a month with my current backup system, not counting all the time wasted! Carbonite was a no-brainer.

Downloading and Setup

After a quick download and about 3 minutes of setup time, Carbonite was working as promised. All I had to do was pick out which drives or folders on my computer I wanted it to backup, nothing more.

Here’s a screenshot of the control panel:

There is always a small Carbonite icon in the system tray, which will open up this control panel. Notice it’s in the process of backing up a picture of mine. It’s all automatic!

How It Works

The automatic backup works great. I’ve had no problems with it slowing down my connection speed, since it only transfers stuff when the computer is idle.

I have about 14 gigs of backups right now and haven’t had a problem. It just took a few days/nights for the initial backup. (Leave your pc online overnight, that helps.) Now it’s just a quick backup whenever I change a file or create a new file. Even better than the speed is that it takes ZERO effort on my part!

The value is truly incredible. Unlimited backups for one low price!

It’s real easy to see which files are backed up.

See those dots on the files? That tells you if Carbonite has backed up the files. There will be different colors depending on the file type and if it is backed up or is pending backup.

It’s easy to change your backup preferences whenever you want, too. Picking out what to backup is simple. Just right-click on a file or folder, and you are presented with a menu like the one shown below.

Just go to the Carbonite option and choose whether or not to backup that file.

Restoring Backups

Restoring stuff is a piece of cake. You can easily access everything from the “My Computer” window where Carbonite adds another drive, which is the remote storage with all your documents.

Clicking on that drive will open up a folder containing all your backed up documents. You can simply copy the files from there onto your computer.

Everything is pretty straight forward. I would have to agree that Carbonite is “backup for everyone” as their website says.

Everything is secure, too. Your data is encrypted before it leaves your computer. Only you have access to it. (Not even someone at Carbonite can get into it.)

Final Decision

This service gets my highest recommendation. When you consider price, ease of use, and functionality, nothing beats it. To be honest, there is nothing I dislike about it. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect, but you never know, it could be the perfect solution!

Go ahead and try it out. There’s no obligation since you don’t even have to enter your credit card information. You just enter your name and email and they let you download a trial version.

Download a Trial Here