Same old issue:
1. Have about 500 GB of data to backup so I signed up for their unlimited plan.
2. Appeared to be working great all through the trial uploading at really fast speeds (should be done in no time I thought).
<fast forward 154 days after paying for a year of service.>
4. Status indicator: 58% complete upload speeds crawling.
5. I install Mozy on top of Carbonite (both running simultaneous).
<fast forward 7 days>
6. Mozy 100% complete! (Including videos and files that Carbonite requires you to manually add for backup), Carbonite status 60%.

Conclusion: Don't believe this crap that Carbonite tells you about how other companies limit bandwidth the way they do, in fact I find that I have had to manual override (easy to do in settings) the upload speeds of Mozy because it backs up so fast that it slows my internet down for other applications.

Sooner or later someone is going to get these guys for false advertising and I can't wait to get my refund check for this worthless service.

BTW: I have since played around with a number of other backup programs and if you do not have a ton of data to backup or just want to have awesome security and sync between devices. Sugarsync is the way to go (in my opinion). I use a combination of Mozy for my large media collection and Sugarsync for my documents and I have never been happier with all the features this lends me.

Kindest Personal Regards

So don't buy into this crap. More than likely they spend more money on advertising to sucker in more people than to increase their capacity to serve their customers needs.

Like a sheep, I believed all of their advertisements that "my entire computer" is backed up. Every carbonite ad I ever heard specifically mentions photos and important work documents. I assumed my files were protected whenever the carbonite icon told me my file backup had just been updated. I was a very happy customer…..until my hard drive crashed.

After replacing my hard drive, I was very glad I had paid for carbonite so I could restore everything. I had some trouble getting the restore process started, but eventually it seemed to kick on and I went to bed. The next morning I had a few old files back on my desktop, which was a good sign. But the carbonite restore log said it was 100% complete, and the "My Documents" folder was empty, except for a few other empty folders. Except for a few things I had saved to desktop, my computer is 99% LOST!

I was hoping this was a simple fix, so I called customer service. The tech support person was Conor. He didn't go out of his way to be rude, but he was like SNL's negative portrayal of unhelpful IT people (Nick Burns, your company's computer guy). He had no tact or sympathy in informing me that carbonite had not backed up the vast majority of anything important on my computer and I may have lost years of family photos, work, etc. He gave me a lot of computer jargon about the glitch that it appears that the "My Documents" folder wasn't backed up by carbonite because it was not in the usual location. I had to interrupt him to tell him that the words under the logo were "Simple. Backup." and that I don't know all the computer jargon he was saying, just that I paid for my entire computer to be backed up. He assured me that carbonite "technically worked" because my desktop was restored but he had "never seen before" why it didn't back up my other files.

I tried to remain calm while I was digesting the fact that I may have actually LOST EVERYTHING (and this guy could care less). I was asking him what they could do to fix it and he mentioned maybe a refund. I told him I didn't want my money back, I wanted my files back. Finally he said he's just tech support he can't help me with anything else. I asked him if I could speak to someone in management and he told me to look for the email address for Jeff Robinson, the Customer Service VP in the followup email from this tech support call.

I don't know what to do. What CAN I DO? I have been royally screwed over by Carbonite. Even the specific files that are not blacklisted (photos, word docs, etc) were not backed up. Feel free to reply here or look me up on facebook. I emailed Jeff but haven't heard back. I have important work projects and presentations coming up that may be doomed. This is like a nightmare. What a false sense of security carbonite sells.

you said " I think if you run tests on Mozy or any other backup service, you will be able to observe bandwidth limits".

Yes, you are right. But the problem is, that I have only 2.6 GB of backed up data and still you limit my upload bandwidth to 512 kbps. I don't know why.

I tried to ask this question your support. But as we all (or at least your customers) know, Carbonite support is crappy. Believe me, I tried it. I either get an answer that contradicts your own KB articles or no answer at all. My personal opinion about your support staff: They don't know their own products at all.

To make my point clear:
I understand and accept bandwidth limits as communicated in your KB article #1140. But PLEASE stick to your own rules.

Unfortunately, it will not allow me to prioritize the process, so my irreplaceable family photos and files representing about 10 years of work languish while it stupidly restores old install packages or other non-vital stuff.

Yes, I've tried to chat with customer support. No response. Yes, there is a function to select and proritize your restore, but the buggy software uses 100% CPU time and then does nothing. The only function that works is the "restore everything" button — which is my last, desperate hope.

Using Carbonite is false security, and unless you know a whole lot about computers, will probably be impossible when the "Sugar hits the fan."

Today I've discovered that Carbonite has gone banannas. The little beach ball of death comes up if I try to hover over its icon, and if I cancel the processes using activity monitor – they just respawn – complete with the beach ball of death. Also through doing this I learned what a resource hog it is. And finally – I've had the service for MONTHS now and it's still not completed a full backup of around 80 gigs.

Sad to hear other people have had similar issues with their support.

Believe it or not Carbonite is a resource hog even when disabled! That's right Carbonite will be at the top of your services window even when put into pause or disable mode! Where Carbonite really fails to deliver is in servicing files that change over time like word docs, graphics, etc. Upon installation Carbonite will scour your system looking for files to protect. While its performing this initial backup process it completely ignores previously scanned files that since changed! In other words common sense would dictate that Carbonite would monitor pre-scanned files for any changes but no it ignores the changes until it backs up your entire system! If you have a larger than average system it could take several weeks for Carbonite to service items from the initial scan! I kid you not. Then once you have a fully covered system Carbonite will only log one update per file per day! If you are just a casual user and write a document or two a day you will be allowed one whole backup per day. I don't know about you but I need a little more from a backup. Carbonite should deploy a priority folder where users can expect regular visits from the Carbonite service routine. And finally…How in the heck can a piece of software that does so little gobble up so much processor and memory resources? My God, I have designed a couple hundred products to date and I have never seen such bloated and inefficient software, ever. This product is a kludge and needs to be scrapped and designed by someone who knows what they are doing.