Backblaze vs. Carbonite

Backblaze and Carbonite are two of the easiest online backup services you can use at the moment and are two of our more popular services that we have reviewed. In many ways the services are similar but they are very different in how they perform their backups.

 

Backblaze takes the approach to backup everything on your computer with the exception of your operating system, applications, and temporary files. Unless otherwise excluded Backblaze will back it up. A default Backblaze install will protect the majority or peoples files on their computer.

Carbonite offers a more traditional folder and selection process but it will not backup your computer system files such as .EXE and .DLL files, temporary files ,operating system files, files in hidden system folders, files over 4gb in size and video files. You can however manually select files over 4gb and video files. This can take a little longer to setup and configure but with a little tweaking will protect the majority of peoples files.

Backblaze Carbonite
Founded 2007 2005
Price Month
Year
2 Year
3 Year
$5.00 / Month
$50.00 / Year
$95.00 / Two Years
NA
NA
$59.99 / Year
$109.99 / Two Years
$149.99 / Three Years
Supported Platforms Windows & Mac Windows & Mac
Free Trial Yes Yes
Storage Size Unlimited Unlimited
File Sharing No No
Lock File Support No Yes
Local Backup No Yes
HomePlus and HomePremier plans support local backup.
External Hard Drive Yes Yes
HomePlus and HomePremier plans support external hard drives.
Network Drives No No
Web Access / Restore Yes Yes
Locate Computer Feature Yes No
Encryption Yes Yes
Internet Transmission with SSL Yes Yes
Private Encryption keys Yes Yes (Windows Only)
Support Email Email, Chat, Phone
Restore Client, Web, USB Flash Drive, USB HD Client, Web, USB HD (HomePremier account only)
Mobile Access No Yes (iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry)
File Size Limit Unlimited 4GB (By default, larger files can be manually selected)
Bandwidth Throttling No Yes
Backup Scheduling Yes Yes
Backup Continuously Yes Yes
File Versioning 30 Days of Revisions 12 Versions
File Archiving 30 Days 30 Days

If there is anything else you would like added to the Backblaze versus Carbonite comparison table please leave a comment.

Whether your choose Backblaze or Carbonite to backup your files both services do a good job of keeping your files safe in the event your computer hard drive dies, your computer is stolen or some other disaster happens.


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8 responses to “Backblaze vs. Carbonite”

  1. Richard Dallow Avatar
    Richard Dallow

    I just redid my harddrive and figured I had backblaze installed so it would be easy to restore my files. Not so. After spending the better part of the weekend downloading files both in under 20gb chunks and in one 60+gb chunk, I discovered to my horror that upon restoration, the files are empty! -0- bytes yet the filesnames are intact. I wrote to tech support but have not heard back from them yet. My big issue is that they REALLY need to have a telephone number to contact them when a situation like this occurs. I’m out of business until they figure out what is going on.

    1. Cloud Storage Buzz Team Avatar

      Richard,
      I am sorry to hear about your problems restoring from Backblaze. This is certainly a good reminder that you should always do a couple of things before you wipe your hard drive. One is have a local backup, it is always much easier to copy all your files back from a local source, the second is to test your restores before you need them. That way you might have been able to spot the problem with your files on Backblaze before you needed them. Certainly it is not good that Backblaze has had problems restoring your files and it would be nice if they had phone support to help in cases like this.

  2. ezas Avatar
    ezas

    The above information is out of date. Backblaze does support bandwidth throttling. Version 2.x supports both automatic and manual throttling settings.

    1. John Tucker Avatar

      Yes you are correct, except the type of bandwidth throttling that the table refers to is where the service throttles the amount of bandwidth the client can use. In this case Carbonite throttles a client depending on how much data they have backed up, while Backblaze does not have a bandwidth throttle and you can use as much of the bandwidth as you can.

  3. Tyler Avatar
    Tyler

    Great, much appreciated!!

  4. Tyler Avatar
    Tyler

    Can you add Crashplan to this comparison table? Or do a Crashplan vs Backblaze table comparison?
    Thanks!

    1. John Tucker Avatar

      I have one in the works actually just have not finished it yet. Compare some of them on the main comparison page: https://cloudstoragebuzz.com/online-backup-comparison/

      Not as complete but has some more information.

    2. John Tucker Avatar

      I added a Backblaze vs. CrashPlan comparison table.

      It really is difficult to compare the two since they offer different ideas on how and what to backup. If you want really easy Backblaze. Want total control, CrashPlan. Depends on what kind of computer user you are I guess.

      Hope it helps.

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