I’ve been waiting to see if someone else has picked up on this, but no-one has: On 30 April 2010 Carbonite quietly updated its release notes showing that a new version was finally available.
The most recent release of Carbonite backup had been 3.7.7. (Build 404) but this was updated to version 4.0.0.
Interestingly, the actual application was never release to the users. Who knows why it was pulled?
Some information about this new version remains on the Carbonite website. You can find that here:
The current version of these pages shows this listed under version 4:
New Restore Manager makes it easy to transfer all of your files to a new computer
- Restore Manager guides you from the website through a complete restore.
- Automatically maps Windows user accounts from old computer to new one, including domain users.
- Offers multiple restore options for user accounts (skip, restore to a folder, restore to a new or existing account).
- Allows you to select priority files to be restored first.
- Provides clear feedback during the restore process (overall restore progress and per-file progress).
- Summary of successfully restored files, priority files, warnings and errors.
- Searchable list of restored files by name and date.
- Printable restore report is saved to desktop as HTML file.
- Report listing original and restored locations of all restored files.
Easier install process
- New computer nickname makes it easier to identify your backed up computers when you need to access your files online, transfer your subscription, or restore all of your files to a new computer.
- Easier to see what will and will not be backed up by default.
- You can turn off Carbonite’s recommended default backup settings, set a backup schedule or manage your own encryption key during the install process with our new Custom Setup option.
Redesigned InfoCenter
- New look and feel.
- New status icons and messages to indicate backup status more clearly.
- Double-progress bar on the backup tab to show overall and per-file backup progress.
- New About tab makes it easy to view or change your computer nickname and provides direct links to edit email / password.
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However, what is perhaps most interesting, is the text that has been removed from the version 4 description since it was first posted to the Carbonite website:
Released April 19, 2010
- More files backed up automatically
- Video files under 50 MB in size will be included in your backup automatically
- Outlook PST files are backed up automatically, regardless of size
- Backup suggestions
- Carbonite v4.0 automatically searches outside of the default backup locations to suggest valuable content to add to your backup
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I’ve tried reinstalling Carbonite and it still installs version 3.7.7.
So, why was Carbonite version 4 pulled?
Cloudfreeday's Blog 
So, if I manually select a Video file over 4gb in size will it back it up or will it go into an infinite series of retries calculating hashes like has been reported before elsewhere on this blog? Based on the pulled information I am guessing that they cannot fix the problem so they “fixed” the problem by documenting that it cannot be done 🙂
taz
Monday, 28 June 2010 at 04:37
Dear Cloudfree,
I’m Dave Friend, CEO of Carbonite. I wanted to provide some clarification on your post. The production verion of 4.0 is currently being rolled out to all customers. This process normally takes a few months. The release notes you saw were for the beta version that we were testing back in April. The 4.0 production upgrade is automatic and customers are notified when they have been upgraded.
During our beta period, we tested many new features, not all of which were included in the release candidate. Our beta testing helps us figure out which features are (and which are not) ready to be widely released.
As for the 4gb file question, you can definitely back up files over 4gb.
David Friend
Tuesday, 29 June 2010 at 08:20
Mr Friend: I’m Dave Friend, CEO of Carbonite.
CloudFreeDay: Yes, I see you pop up on various blog sites, often when someone says something about Carbonite.
Mr Friend: I wanted to provide some clarification on your post.
CloudFreeDay: Yes, thanks.
Mr Friend: The production verion (sic) of 4.0 is currently being rolled out to all customers. This process normally takes a few months.
CloudFreeDay: I clearly wasn’t talking about Carbonite’s rollout of a new version to existing customers, instead, I referred to “reinstalling Carbonite”. The fact remains that any user who reinstalls now will not receive version 4. I noticed that Carbonite now makes available version 3.7.10 (Build 428) dated 17 March 2010 to any user who chooses to reinstall.
Why not make the latest version available to such customers if, in fact, version 4 is complete?
Mr Friend: The release notes you saw were for the beta version that we were testing back in April.
CloudFreeDay: So, what is clear now, is that the text shown above in the second and smaller box is what was in the beta (but then removed). The text shown in the first and large box is the final for version 4 as shown currently on Carbonite’s own site.
Mr Friend: As for the 4gb file question, you can definitely back up files over 4gb.
CloudFreeDay: The fact remains that many of us cannot backup large files as Carbonite sends the machine into 50% CPU usage, and concurrent with this, it ceases to upload data to Carbonite’s servers. I have detailed this in my blog and others have confirmed it as an issue (in comments on this blog and elsewhere).
So whilst many people have files over 4 GB uploaded (including myself) there are numerous instances where this is not possible due to the symptoms described. Contacting Carbonite customer care is a futile exercise as I have found them to be next to useless – an endless game of blaming the customer and requests to reinstall. Why not have your engineers (rather that customer service) work with these people directly so the large-files-issue can be resolved once and for all?
Further, once a backup gets over 200 GB Carbonite throttles upload speeds dramatically meaning that a backup may never actually complete (or be able to keep up with daily changes to Outlook PST files and so on). Mozy doesn’t seem to have these limits and in my honest opinion it is a product which is better suited for anyone who doesn’t want to worry about whether their backup product is really unlimited.
cloudfreeday
Tuesday, 29 June 2010 at 13:07
For the record, Carbonite version 4 remains missing in action.
I reinstalled Carbonite yesterday and found that version 3.7.10 (build 428) was available for download from within the Carbonite account portal.
I wonder if any has actually installed version 4. Anyone out there? Let’s hear about it.
cloudfreeday
Friday, 16 July 2010 at 13:57