We have a fantastic news for our Carbonite lovers.
Since November 8th, Carbonite have removed the practice of throttling. Previously, Carbonite throttled bandwidth of a user when he has uploaded more than 200GB. They didn’t really publish the specifics but we noticed that due to the throttling, after 200GB, you can only upload about 1GB of data a day.
What a bummer.
That combined with lack of features for Mac OS X were the reasons why our team here at BestBackups has always been a bit hesitant to fully recommend Carbonite.
But this is not the case anymore. While Mac users still cannot enjoy full features that Windows users are taking for granted, Windows users will now be able to backup all of their data to unlimited storage on Carbonite’s servers.
Not only the bandwidth throttle has been removed, Carbonite also increased bandwidth capabilities for Home Users. Finally Home Users can have same bandwidth capabilities as Business Users. On average, a small business can backup all of their emails, contacts, and calendars in about 70 minutes (assuming an average 5GB of Outlook .pst file). And by now, Carbonite Home Users can upload 2 hours of HD video file within an hour. Awesome news indeed!
This changes are effective immediately for new Carbonite Home Users as well as existing ones with backup data smaller than 200GB. Carbonite will roll out the changes in following months to existing Home customers with data more than 200GB backed up on Carbonite servers.
What does this mean?
Now that we have told you a great news, let’s take a closer look at what this all means. We will read between the lines for you.
1. Throttling never helps
This is a lesson to all online backup service providers. If they want to give us a kick ass service, they just can’t do things like limiting our bandwidth and whatnot. We are paying for a service, and we want to know exactly what we will get. There is no point in getting unlimited storage when we have to wait a year to get all our data backed up.
2. Carbonite is coming back to the top
At least in our lists, that is. Carbonite was our favorite. It has really good management team, kick ass customer support and amazing service. Sure, the software is lackluster for Mac OS X users but for all Windows users, Carbonite was like a gift from god. Then other competitors like CrashPlan came along, and Carbonite fell out of grace. You might notice that we have been putting Carbonite at around #3 or #4 most of the times. Now that the annoying bandwidth throttle is gone, you can expect to see Carbonite scoring #1 or #2 spots in relevant categories.
3. Competitors will have to up their game
It looks like Carbonite is listening to their customers. After all, many of us… okay, all of us were pretty displeased with the whole bandwidth throttle. Now that it’s gone, Carbonite has it all. Amazing customer support? Check. Really good pricing? Check. Outstanding service? Check. Unlimited storage? Check. It looks like Carbonite is sending a serious message to its competitors. We can expect to see others in the industry topping up their game. Exciting days ahead of us!
