Carbonite Server vs. IDrive Online Backup and Object Storage e2

A key question is, "how much critical data needs to be backed up?". A follow-up question might be, "what impact would it have on your business and reputation if you were to lose this data or take more than a few days to recover?" If a company's data is not critical or valuable to the success of their business, then this is not a good solution.

Incentivized

IDrive really excels at automating the backup process by allowing you the ability to schedule them as desired as well as enable continuous protection in real time so your data stays backed up. It also excels at allowing customization of not just the desired data you want backed up but also where you want the data to be back up too (online, local, or express service) as well as various sources to pull from (computer, mobile, external hard drive, etc). Only scenario where I believe IDrive is not really appropriate is if you are looking for an unlimited storage option since IDrive packages all of have a finite storage limit

Incentivized

• Their web portal is easy to use to monitor server, check logs, restore or run an ad-hoc backup job.
• Minimal problems, but when there is a problem, customer support is friendly and flexible in finding a solution. Contacting through their customer portal is convenient.
• Competitive pricing for level of service provided.

Incentivized

• I'm using it on MAC, the app works very well in the background
• Logging activities is something I really like, because I can check whether the backup was successful or not.
• I really like the option of being able to select external drivers and back up only specific folders or files.
• The application itself is very easy to use, even though it doesn't have a version in my language (pt-br), I had no trouble setting it up and I'm using it without any problems.

Incentivized

• The granular restore tool for exchange, which is needed to restore a specific email rather than an entire mailbox, is a bit combersome. I wish the tool was incorporated into the 'normal' restore features.
• The inline replication process is very sensitive to available bandwidth. And if bandwidth between source and replication site becomes overused, inline replication fails and 'regular' replication takes its place. I wish inline replication was a bit less 'touchy' and would have a built in 'pause' to allow for the clearing of bandwidth before it fails over to 'regular' replication.

Incentivized

• DropBox-protected folders were not initially backed up as IDrive Online Backup and Object Storage e2 did not follow the symbolic links created
• I experienced some UX confusion in adding new folders to backup; it's a different interface than setting up exclusions, and they should follow the same workflow and page buttons
• After a reboot, it appears like a full disk scan is performed which can take quite a long time on a disk which has many files and lots of space

Incentivized

Carbonite Server Backup does not integrate or support any reporting; it is not good at it. We required monthly and quarterly reports for audit. If we fail in that we get fined or we have to pay a certain amount of money to customer. It does not support cloud instances and we are using N2WS for the cloud instances. This is an additional burden for customers.

Incentivized

It does everything that it needs to to create an effecitve Three level backup to the cloud of all your important data, its reliable, dependable and peformant in its use cases. It overcomes the need to store offsite physical media such as Tape or disk storage. And its cost and level of reporting can be tailored to fit the use case of your business.

Incentivized

Product needs a lot of improvements in some features like Cloud and Reporting.

Incentivized

IDrive Online Backup and Object Storage e2 is already an incredibly idea user experience, so it's tough to think of thing. The only area I experienced that could be improved would be streamlining / tutorializing the first time setup for newer users (like me) since there are so many options available. I suppose a 'Pro Mode' where quicker file searching / backup setting up / set management would be great, once I've gotten really used to IDrive Online Backup and Object Storage e2 and want to make changes as quick as using a terminal.

Some of the requests we could not get resolved on time. They took a long time to provide the reason for the issue we had raised.

Incentivized

I have not had to use their tech support. I did call once but luckily figured out what to do while I was on hold so I disconnected. If I really needed them it would have been a very long hold time I suppose.

Incentivized

We had appliance and we just needed to setup the Director Console which was straight forward and easy.

Incentivized

Did not participate in the implementation.

Incentivized

Carbonite Server's direction wasn't really for cloud companies as they are more specialized in robust local backup services. I'm a novice when it comes to server backups and replication, but have learned and picked up a lot from talking to the customer center compared to Veeam where it's mostly just self-learning reading lots of documentation which could be overwhelming at times. We started using Veeam as most of our on-prem servers are ceasing operations as we slowly transition to the cloud. I would still use Carbonite as a fall-back option just in case the cloud fails us. Our company cannot afford to have downtimes as we work closely with a lot of contractors and every minute counts.

Incentivized

I was a Backblaze user for 5 years because they had a very cost effective plan for my storage needs. However, they were very poor at backing up external devices quickly, and made it a pain in the butt to keep the backups active due to their 30 days connectivity policy.

Dropbox is a great fit for cloud backup when you need to access the backup files in the cloud frequently.

IDrive is the best solution out there for true backup of devices in case they are damaged or lost.

• While EVault can become expensive if you have a lot of data to store, but you have to keep in mind that it does not cost you anything more to restore your data in the event of an emergency. Some systems give you a great upfront cost, until you actually need to retrieve your data.

Incentivized

• For individual users such as my case, the savings with the Personal plan are important compared to alternatives like ElephantDrive. For 5TB ElephantDrive costs $600/yr in the comparable Family plan, whereas IDrive Online Backup and Object Storage e2 costs only $99.50/yr.

Incentivized