Carbonite

Carbonite was founded in 2005 by Jeff Flowers and David Friend. Carbonite initially focused on backing up digital photos, and offered free trial subscriptions with the purchase of a camera to Staples customers. They later partnered with Microsoft to get their service bundled with Microsoft Money 2007. In the years that followed, Carbonite partnered with many hardware manufacturers to include its service with computer sales.

Carbonite was the first storage provider to offer unlimited backup, a model that many other storage providers now use. With a customer base of over 1.5 million subscribers, including 50,000 small businesses, Carbonite is one of the most trusted names in home and business online storage.

Carbonite Pricing and Services

Most Popular Plan:

Personal Plus, $99/computer/year:

• Only available for Windows XP, Vista, 7, or 8
• Can backup external hard drives and thumb drives
• Automatic cloud backup
• Sync, share, and access files from mobile app
• Backs up an entire hard drive, including operating system
• 15 day free trial

15 day free trial available with no credit card. Free trial works on both PC and Mac. If you do not sign up after the free trial ends, Carbonite will save your data for 15 days (in case you decide to change your mind), and then permanently delete your files. Will only save music and videos of paid subscribers.

Highlighted Features:

• HIPAA Compliant (Pro and Server)
• 15 day free trial (Personal)
• 30 day free trial (Pro and Server)
• Easy setup with free assistance from Carbonite (Pro and Server)
• Can share files with non-subscribers (Personal and Pro)
• Servers are two to thirty times as fast as other cloud storage providers

All Available Plans & Services:

• Personal Basic, $59.99/computer/year: Unlimited storage; automatic cloud backup; sync, share, and access files remotely with free app; PC/Mac.
• Personal Plus, $99.99/computer/year: Unlimited storage; automatic cloud backup; sync, share, and access files remotely with free app; external hard drive backup; PC only.
• Personal Prime, $199.99/computer/year: Unlimited storage; automatic cloud backup; sync, share, and access files remotely with free app; external hard drive backup; automatic video backup; replacement hard drive physically shipped to you if faced with downtime; PC only.
• Pro Basic, $269/year: 250 GB of storage to be shared by an unlimited number of computers, external hard drives, and NAS devices; HIPAA compliant; free valet installation; sync, share, and access files remotely with free app.
• Pro Prime, $599/year: 500 GB of storage to be shared by an unlimited number of computers, external hard drives, NAS devices, and Windows file servers; HIPAA compliant; free valet installation; sync, share, and access files remotely with free app.
• Server Basic, $799/year: 250 GB of storage to be shared by an unlimited number of external hard drives, NAS devices, physical servers, virtual servers, databases, SQL, Exchange, SharePoint, MySQL, Oracle, Hyper-V, Windows System State, Windows NTFS & ReFs files and folders; support for local and cloud backup targets (for server backup only);  HIPAA compliant; free valet installation.
• Server Prime, $899/year: 500 GB of storage to be shared by an unlimited number of external hard drives, NAS devices, physical servers, virtual servers, databases, SQL, Exchange, SharePoint, MySQL, Oracle, Hyper-V, Windows System State, Windows NTFS & ReFs files and folders; support for local and cloud backup targets (for server backup only);  HIPAA compliant; free valet installation.
• Server Pro Bundle, $999/year: 500 GB of storage to be shared by an unlimited number of computers, external hard drives, NAS devices, physical servers, virtual servers, databases, SQL, Exchange, SharePoint, MySQL, Oracle, Hyper-V, Windows System State, Windows NTFS & ReFs files and folders; support for local and cloud backup targets (for server backup only);  HIPAA compliant; free valet installation; sync, share, and access files remotely with free app.
• Additional storage $99.99/year per 100 GB: Appliance cloud options available from certified partners, prices start at $1199.99/year.

Help & Support Options:
US-based support 8:30AM -9:00PM 7 days a week

Awards & Recognition:
ChannelPro-SMB Readers’ Choice Awards in two categories – Best Cloud Backup and Data Recovery Vendor and Best Backup and Disaster Recovery Vendor, 2014; American Business Awards Gold Stevie, 2012.

Editor’s Bottom Line of Carbonite

Carbonite has been criticized in the past due to their throttling high-volume customers. In 2013 they did away with the cap and increased their speed 500%. Now Carbonite has the fastest servers, as tested by The Tolly Group, who compared it to three major competitors. Carbonite also no longer puts a cap on how large an uploaded file is.

Carbonite has top-notch security. They use 448-bit encryption, compared to 256-bit encryption most providers use. It is HIPAA compliant, and considered safe for important medical, financial, and personal records.

Personal Prime subscribers get the “Courier” service. With this unique service, if a local computer fails, Carbonite will physically mail you an optical disk or external hard drive with all your data on it. There is a $9.99 charge each time you use this service. Because data is copied unencrypted, using this recovery method is not recommended for confidential data.