[Jster025]

I’m trying to choose between Carbonite vs Backblaze for online backup and have some questions.

First of all, I keep everything on one computer, so I don’t need the capability for backing up EHD’s. I have a large amount of data to back up—240 GB and counting.

I like the idea that with Backblaze you can choose to get your ‘restore’ sent to you on flash drives or USB hard drives if you decide that’s what you want. I realize it’s an additional charge, but with Carbonite, you have to pay more per month to get that feature, not just add it on when you need or want it. BB ‘speaks’ to great speeds, too; but who knows whether it is really different from Carbonite or not.

It looks like Carbonite has three pluses going for it. The first is that you can access and download files from your backups to remote computers. My understanding is that I could be on a friend’s/sister’s computer and download some photos for them or show them a layout I made.

However, the main plus (as far as I can tell) is that Carbonite allows you more flexibility as to what folders or what drives are backed up and BB backs up everything for file types. I have two fixed disks on my computer—my main C drive that has all my operating software/applications and a separate drive for all of my documents. I would like to be able to back up all or most on the second drive and only my email files from my C drive. I don’t want the backup to go browsing around my C drive all of the time. I do have copies of a few ‘documents’ still left on my C drive, and I also like to put things I don’t want to back up on there as well.

I’m also interested in being able to change ‘when’ things are backed up (turn the auto-backup off & on), and I believe that Carbonite does allow this and I don’t think BB does.

Can anyone tell me if my assumptions correct? Thanks so much!

[Reminiscing]

I have only used Backblaze (for two years) and never Carbonite.

I CAN access my files on Backblaze from any computer via their website.

I CAN tell Backblaze precisely which folders I want backed up. it backs up everything by default just to be simple, but you can go in and tell it to skip whatever you want.

I CAN turn off auto back up any time.

The only thing I don't like about Backblaze is the initial back up takes soooo long, but that's going to be the case with any system. I never notice it running, it doesn't slow down my computer, and when I've contacted customer service I've gotten a response within a day.

Having said all that, I primarily chose Backblaze over Carbonite because I wanted to be able to back up an EHD, so Carbonite may be just as good. Maybe it's like the Canon vs Nikon question. Good luck!

[PBarnes]

I've used Carbonite but now use Backblaze. I do have an EHD so that is why I switched from Carbonite. Actually, I went to Mozy first but then they changed their pricing structure and it was going to cost me a lot more money because of the amount of data I have (as in scrapbook materials lol.) I agree that Backblaze runs very nicely in the background. I'm concerned that if I have to do an entire restore, that it may take a long, long time but 1) hopefully I won't need to, and 2) I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

[scrappinchar]

PBarnes, on 24 April 2012 - 07:10 PM, said:

I've used Carbonite but now use Backblaze. I do have an EHD so that is why I switched from Carbonite. Actually, I went to Mozy first but then they changed their pricing structure and it was going to cost me a lot more money because of the amount of data I have (as in scrapbook materials lol.) I agree that Backblaze runs very nicely in the background. I'm concerned that if I have to do an entire restore, that it may take a long, long time but 1) hopefully I won't need to, and 2) I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Ditto to everything Pat just said.

I did like that Carbonite would have a little green dot on each file to show that it was backed up. Backblaze doesn't show anything. I got really used to that green dot. Gave me reassurance. lol

[ValerieT]

I've used Carbonite.

The initial backup took nearly a month!, but once it had done it it ran smoothly in the background. The restore, which I had to use once, also took forever, my DH spent days waiting for important files to be restored.

We didn't realise, until we had been using it for a year and had to do the restore that we could choose which folders were backed up. On the plan we were on you couldn't share files between computers, you couldn't even view them on line.

We changed to Livedrive when we bought an EHD and carbonite put their prices up. The only downside to livedrive is that you have to copy the file or folder you want backed up to a special folder, so you have to remember to add new files.


My DH chose Livedrive, it works well with his job, due to the ease of sharing files.

[Deb C.]

I've been thinking about backblaze. One question. If it takes forever to download the first time, can you still use the computer during that time? Does it slow down the computer during that initial download?

[Syndee]

Ditto to what the other Backblaze users said Also, yes the initial back-up does take time depending on how much you have to back-up, but it runs in the background and you can use your computer like normal. I totally forgot about it and before I knew it everything was backed up! It's very easy to use and I don't have to fuss with it. The biggest selling point is the ability to back-up EHD's.

[kimmybutton]

Ditto on the Backblaze posts. I have retrieved specific files that I have "lost" several times now. It's been an easy process, doesn't seem to slow my system down and cheap. HTH!

[goodqueenbee]

Back blaze is AWESOME!

I had to replace the hard drive 2 x in one year and it took Back Blaze all of five minutes to "recognize" the new was the same old file setup and complete the change over. (I used THEIR method of changing the hard drive. They will assist you.)

The down side was switching to Mac from PC . Now I need to rebuild my PC before I can access that stored info. It won't recognize my MAX with externals as the same computer. I have since made several backup copies to various hard drives, so may not need to access it after all.

Downloading was not difficult when my nephew erased my internal backup drive while installing the new hard drive.

[Deb C.]

My DH gave me the go-ahead so I think I'm gonna have to give Backblaze a good look-at.

Thanks for the info.