Carbonite has been one of the leading data protection companies in the world since it was founded in 2005. The company offers solutions for home and business backup, endpoint security, and fast recovery after a data loss event.
Many of Carbonite’s products are impressively user-friendly, which makes it easy to protect your data. However, the company isn’t as flexible as some of the other best data loss prevention services. In our Carbonite evaluation, we’ll explore what this company has to offer and help you decide if it’s the right choice for protecting your valuable data.
Carbonite: Plans and pricing
Carbonite offers a widely used and relatively inexpensive cloud backup solution, known as Carbonite Safe, for home and business. Carbonite Safe costs $6 per month for a single computer (or $9.34 per month if you need support for an external hard drive) and includes unlimited storage.
A Carbonite Safe Pro plan, designed for small businesses, supports up to 25 computers with 250 GB of total storage for $24 per month. If you have servers, you can backup one server for $50 per month or unlimited servers for $83.34 per month with 500 GB of cloud storage.
Carbonite also has a number of tailored business solutions, including endpoint management, data migration, and Microsoft 365 backup. These are priced by quote only.
Carbonite: How it works
If you are looking for a cloud backup service, it’s easy to get started with Carbonite. You can sign up for a subscription online and begin moving data to the Carbonite cloud immediately. Carbonite Safe is accessible through a web portal, but the desktop app provides additional control over your backups.
If you are looking for more advanced business solutions, you will need to contact Carbonite to discuss your business’s specific needs. The company’s sales experts can offer quotes for data migration and recovery solutions as well as for backing up large numbers of computers or servers.
Carbonite: Features and services
Carbonite Safe is Carbonite’s flagship cloud backup service for individuals and businesses. The software is an excellent deal for individuals since it comes with unlimited backup and support for external hard drives. For businesses, the support for unlimited server backups is a huge plus.
However, adding storage space beyond the standard 500 GB allotment can be quite expensive. Carbonite also has a reputation for slow data downloads, which can be problematic if you need to restore an entire server from the cloud.
Carbonite Endpoint is an endpoint security software designed to help reduce the threat of data loss or theft from ransomware, user error, and hardware failures. The software can be deployed silently across your business’s network, and it runs in the background under the control of network administrators. Data can be backed up directly to the Carbonite cloud on a customizable schedule. If a device is lost or stolen, administrators can remotely wipe its data.
The process of restoring data with Carbonite Endpoint can be somewhat slow. However, the software is easy to set up and works well for businesses using Microsoft 365 since it works with Exchange and Sharepoint databases.
Carbonite Migrate is a solution for safely, securely, and reliably migrating large volumes of data from one cloud platform to another. Migrate is also quite useful for businesses that are looking to make the transition from physical server infrastructure to the cloud.
Carbonite Migrate suggests an automated migration pathway based on the resources being moved, which helps reduce the risk of losing critical data. While the service can be used for multi-cloud transitions, most of the automation tools are optimized for one-to-one migrations between platforms.
Carbonite Recover is a high-volume data recovery solution that creates a secondary copy of your business’s digital environment in the Carbonite cloud. Data is transferred continuously so that your backup is always up to date, and the software is bandwidth-optimized so it doesn’t take a significant toll on your computing resources.
If an outage happens in your primary system, Carbonite’s cloud copy of your servers can be spun up in just a few minutes so that there is almost no downtime for your business. The system is nearly flawless and plays to Carbonite’s strengths in cloud backup and network recovery.
Carbonite: Support and customer care
Carbonite takes support extremely seriously for all of its products. Carbonite Safe customers can contact the customer service team by phone from 2 AM to 7 PM Eastern from Monday to Friday, from 8 AM to 7 PM on Saturdays, and from 8 AM to 4:30 PM on Sundays. You can also get in touch by email or find answers on your own using the large online knowledgebase.
Business customers signed up for Endpoint, Migrate, or Recover plans receive 24/7 phone support.
The competition
Carbonite offers relatively straightforward and easy to use solutions for data loss prevention. However, if you’re looking for more flexibility in your data backups, it’s worth considering Cohesity. This company works with multiple cloud platforms for backup and has its own suite of cloud apps to put your backed-up data to work. It’s not nearly as inexpensive as Carbonite for low-volume backup, but plans for server-scale data management are competitive.
For endpoint management, it’s worth taking a closer look at Endpoint Protector from CoSoSys. This software includes device control measures similar to Carbonite Endpoint, as well as options for enforced data encryption on users’ devices and real-time scanning of emails and external drives.
Final verdict
Carbonite is a major player in the data loss prevention space and a favorite among small businesses. Carbonite Safe is an inexpensive and simple solution for backing up data to the cloud, while the company also offers more advanced solutions for eliminating downtime, protecting individual computers, and migrating between platforms. Carbonite offers 24/7 support for most business customers, so you can feel confident that the company will be there if you need help.
Further reading
