Cloudfreeday's Blog

I’ve previously talked about Carbonite failing with large files (here Carbonite seems to fail with large files) and that I’ve written to Carbonite seeking its assistance. I wanted to give you more information about this whole scenario.

Today I spent some time to repeat the Carbonite-large-file-failure problem. Along the way I took various screen shots to assist with my explanation of what goes on. This is what I did.

Carbonite was nearing the end of backing some recently changed files. All was running normally on my computer.

I selected an AVI video file, 6.3 GB in size, for backup by way of right-clicking in File Explorer, then from the Carbonite menu choosing “Back this up”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What follows is an enormous amount of sustained hard disk drive activity. Presumably this is Carbonite encrypting and encoding the first portion of the file for transmission and, I guess, to be expected.

Then, all uploads from Carbonite will cease. Yes, completely! Carbonite remains in this no-upload state until you next reboot – I’ve previously tested this overnight and yes, there are hours and hours of zero upload from Carbonite. You can see the upload ceasing see this from the screen print.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worst of all, not only does Carbonite cease to upload anything, the application takes CPU usage to an incredible 50%. This fluctuates up and down by 1 or 2 percentage points, but aside from that it remains at 50%. As with the zero uploads, this high CPU usage remains until you deselect the large file from your backup and reboot. Simply deselecting the file from the Carbonite backup menu will not resolve the high CPU usage (or the associated zero-upload issue, for that matter). 

 

Throughout this whole process the Carbonite application shows that it is uploading the file. The reality is far from the truth  – and NetLimiter data proves this. Aside from making your hard disk drive look busy and from taking your CPU usage into high levels, Carbonite is not doing much at all – certainly it is not backing up your file.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In response to my detailed email to Carbonite about this issue, customer service replied with a stock standard response – I know it’s a standard response as I’ve seen the same (or very similar) text quoted on other websites. Carbonite did not properly review my correspondence and it did not address my issue. This is what they said:

Hello and thank you for contacting Carbonite Customer Support.The speed of your Internet Connection is the primary limiting factor for the speed of your backup.  For example, a FIOS user will back up and restore at a much higher rate than a DSL user, and a cable user may backup and restore slower during peak Cable usage times.  Additionally, Carbonite slows down while you are using your computer to avoid affecting your CPU or Internet Speed.  The average Carbonite user backs up between 2GB and 3GB per day. Carbonite backs up an unlimited amount of data, however users with more than 200 GB of data selected for back up will find that completing their initial backup will take a longer period of time.  Carbonite allocates more bandwidth to new users doing a typical initial backup of less than 35 GB, and allocates less to users after their back up exceeds 200 GB.  Once your initial backup is complete, updates to your backup usually take only a few minutes each day. Therefore if you have in excess of 200 GB of data it would be best to manually select only your important files first.  You may also want to consider backing up your larger less important files locally. Please keep in mind that this does not affect restore speeds.  Carbonite can restore data at up to 10mbps (although most consumer Internet connections are slower than this).  If your Internet connection provides download speeds of 10mbps and the only activity being performed by your computer is your Carbonite restore process, it is possible to restore as much as 100 GB per day. Please let us know if you need additional assistance.

 

Now, I’m only at 102 GB – nowhere near the 200 GB mark – the point at which Carbonite starts to throttle uploads “allocates less” bandwidth.

I have sought more information from Carbonite – let’s see what happens second time around.

So, is this large file backup issue more widespread? Is it a deliberate attempt to discourage people from backing up large files? Something doesn’t smell right about this.

What if you use a particular application, or system, that creates files with an extension that Carbonite staff have deemed isn’t worthy of backup?

Well… be prepared to exchange many, many email messages with Carbonite “support”. Far from a pleasant experience, you’ll find yourself repeating yourself and in the end you’ll probably want to cancel your subscription. Yes, this whole process has left me exasperated.

My issue is this: I use Vista’s BitLocker feature. BitLocker allows you to encrypt your hard drives so if your computer is stolen whoever gets it won’t be able to access your data. One of the ways you can unlock your BitLocker-protected data is via a small (124 bytes) BEK key file which you store on a USB key. You simply insert this at start-up time and “voila” your data is unlocked.

I already keep this key on a number of USB drives just in case I lose one or the USB drive fails for whatever reason. I thought that keeping the file on my hard drive would be a good idea too as Carbonite would back that up offsite. After all, that’s what Carbonite is supposed to do, back up your data to an offsite location.

How wrong I was. Carbonite won’t backup the tiny, tiny BitLocker encryption file. Further, there are no Carbonite options available on right-click of the file to allow me to force backup of that file.

Carbonite tells me that “Carbonite provides you with unlimited backup of all your irreplaceable files of your computer.” Well, if the one and only key that can access the files of my computer isn’t “irreplaceable” I don’t know what is!

The interesting thing is, if you refer back to my post here What should be included in your backup? you will see that the BEK file type is not listed on the excluded file types.

So what now? Not only do Carbonite’s users need to consider the list of excluded file types (which I suspect many users don’t even know about), they also have to worry about another secret list which excludes even more file types! What a ridiculous situation!

Is Carbonite offering users a backup service or is it not? Carbonite needs to allow its users to control what is important and what is not.

(One day soon I’ll detail the arduous exchange I had with Carbonite support about this.)