All in all I'm still quite happy with CrashPlan, but I can identify with the experience above re: troubleshooting complicated issues.

Then, just before signing up to the full deal, I realized my backup is stuck, and the numbers are not consistent on my mapped drive (I know not officially supported).

What broke the deal was their support. I started interacting with their support to figure out what's happening. I had to REMIND their support I have an open ticket. At some point – I uploaded log file, and again reminded them to get an answer; the answer was "the developer is looking at it". Enough is enough.

Not professional. Nobody should nag support 4+ times. (BTW – I read your Carbonite support ordeal … hard to believe it can be worse … so pathetic …)

I am off to iDrive; superb performance and support from my limited test; let's see how it goes.
Less features, more expensive for all of my data – but I need a backup+support I can trust.

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.

Does Crashplan save previous versions of files & if so, for how long. I am concerned about having a corrupted file & then not being able to access a earlier version that is not corrupted.
Thanks.

For anyone considering Carbonite, please please please choose someone else and save yourself the frustration. Also, for those wanting to confirm just how bad Carbonite's speeds are, they've gone so far as to now publish their capped speeds (sometime at the end of December they buried this on their site).

http://cp-carbonite.kb.net/display/4n/kb/article….

Here is a quote of the relevant information. I can tell you from experience they don't even achieve these rates. I ultimately gave up when my total backup was around 180 GB and my upload speeds were capped at 100 kbps.

Hopefully this helps someone avoid the same mistake I made.

<==========>
Our bandwidth policy is allocated into three tiers as shown below. This allows us to ensure that all users are able to backup their most important data as quickly as possible. Actual speeds may vary depending on your internet connection, your computer's configuration, other Internet-enabled software you may be running, and how often you use your computer. The current maximum upload speeds are as follows:

* The first 35GB of data can achieve upload speeds of up to 2 mbps (megabits per second).
* Between 35GB – 200GB of data can have the upload speeds reach up to 512 kbps (kilobits per second).
* 200GB or more of data can be uploaded at up to 100 kbps (kilobits per second).
<==========>