Monday, March 7, 2016

Cloud Backup Services How does Backblaze compare with Carbonite

Cloud Backup Services How does Backblaze compare with CarboniteWhen it comes to online backup services there are a number of choices. The following chart compares each of the leading online backup services based on 8 essential features. When you examine Carbonite, and Backblaze based on cost, storage volume, and ease of use it's clear that Backblaze is the best choice for your online backup needs.

Blackblaze is one of the most highly ranked automatic cloud services out there, for one critical reason: it’s extremely easy to use and it’s dirt cheap. But as everyone knows, sometimes cheap isn’t necessarily better. If you want cheap and you want something that’ll work, Backblaze could be your best bet. Storage is unlimited, you can set your own bandwidth usage, and there aren’t any specific file size limits. Which means if you’ve got an enormous HD video file, Backblaze is okay with that. Many cloud service providers aren’t.

Carbonite is that they don’t offer any level of free cloud storage. You can get a free 15-day trial or coupons without having to give over your credit card information, but if you’ve got a respectable amount of data to back up, it’s likely the enforced bandwidth throttling you’ll have to endure during the initial upload could cause you to eat through those 15 days fast. In testing, upload speeds were so slow (around 4GB per 24 hours) that uploading over 500GB of data would take literally months. Fortunately, Carbonite’s customer service seems to be good about offering refunds to those who can find faster upload services elsewhere. On the positive side, Carbonite also offers unlimited data from one computer for a flat yearly fee. This package comes with delivery of your data on a hard drive if you experience a major loss of data on your home system. Carbonite offers a smartphone app for all packages that let you access your files from anywhere from any tech gadget.

Backblaze offers a single plan across for all of its users called datafabusa. It appears the company believes simplicity is the key. It provides unlimited data backup for both PC and Mac at $5 per-month, per-computer. However, with an annual-subscription commitment, you can get it at a price of just over $4 per month, which adds up to $50. If you intend to save more money, then the two-year commitment should be a good choice. You can save a total of $25 by paying $95 for two years.

With Carbonite, everything comes at a price, but you get what you pay for. While looking at Carbonite’s pricing plans, you’re sure to exclaim, “Well, that’s not official, though!” Unlike Backblaze, it offers four plans to serve specific needs. Individual users can avail of a personal plan, which has a starting annual price of $59.99 per computer. You get an automatic-backup feature and coupons to reduce that cost , 7-days per week of customer support, and free apps to sync, share, and access files remotely.

A backup provider is only as good as the recovery service it provides. If you can’t restore your data easily, then the backup provider is no good. Both Backblaze and Carbonite give the ability to restore files through the Internet – whether it is some or all files. Backblaze allows you to restore large amount of data by sending you a USB Flash Drive or a hard drive. Carbonite does offer a similar solution. They have a courier service for $9.99 but you need to have subscribed to their Prime plan.

Carbonite is a good, well-known backup service, but for my backup needs, Backblaze was a better fit. They provided all the necessary options for backing up and restoring my data. When it comes to backing up data, you need to have a backup process that works for you. With cloud backup, you need to weigh all your options to decide which cloud backup provider works best for you. Backblaze is better.

Backblaze is faster, less expensive, and doesn’t restrict the files that are backed up on any of their plans.  The cost is just $5/month per computer for unlimited backups, and it will backup all the files you want.  Speeds to Backblaze were almost double what I got with Carbonite, so you’ll be able to backup and restore files faster.

With that being said, there are a couple advantages to Carbonite.  Only Carbonite can perform local (aka mirror image) backups, in addition to the cloud.  Also, the “Sync and Share” feature can be used to collaborate on files.  Backblaze doesn’t let you sync or share files – it’s backup only.

Although Carbonite has a couple unique features, Backblaze places less restrictions on the types of files it backs up.  Backblaze can also backup external hard drives, while Carbonite charges extra for this.

Like Backblaze, Carbonite supports both iOS and Android. The installation is pretty straightforward, and once logged in, you can access your files or backup your data easily.

Which one do you plan to use? Do you have the same verdict as ours, or is the winner of Backblaze vs Carbonite different in your eyes? Please share your experience and thanks for reading