I use several cloud backup services, mostly on different computers, but on my MacBook I use Backblaze and Carbonite. The reason being that they each have one excellent feature that the other lacks. Backblaze runs only on OS X. Carbonite runs on Windows and OS X systems.
Backblaze is built to run natively on OS X and it shows. The speed with which Backblaze analyzes your drive and sends your files for backup is literally blazing fast. The one drawback for me using Backblaze is that I cannot quickly and easily find, view and download single files. There is no user friendly online interface. If you need to download a file only, then that is fine. You locate the file in the cloud select to download it, then Backblaze goes to work in the background. It zips up the file(s) you have selected to download and prepares them for download. It will send you an email when your download is ready, then you go back to the website and locate the list of downloads that are ready and select the zip file(s) to download. It’s clunky but it gets the job done.
Carbonite is an excellent windows cloud backup service which was ported over to OS X and it shows. Carbonite is slow as molasses. It spends ages scanning your drive to locate changed files. Then the process of encrypting the file(s) and sending to the cloud is brutally slow. I mean what takes minutes in Backblaze takes days for Carbonite. I have read that they limit the speed you can reach connecting to their cloud servers, and I have read that they lifted the speed limit due to customer complaints. But it feels like there is a speed limit. However, when I use Carbonite on a Windows 7 box it is very fast, so I’m not sure whether the slowdown is on the local side or the network speed limit. Another issue using Carbonite on a Mac system is that the Carbonite Daemon runs at 99% CPU usage all of the time, so it is an energy hog and you have to watch it during resource intensive usage. In fact, if I am using my Mac heavily, I generally have to put Carbonite backup on ‘pause’ for the duration.
The appeal of Carbonite is that they have a user friendly web interface where you can browse your directories and preview your files. You can easily download any file wherever you want. It used to work that you could use the Carbonite app on any iOS device and view files and photos and download to the device; however, the Carbonite app no longer displays files uploaded from an OS X machine, only from Windows. Nevertheless, the convenience of browsing single files on the go is very appealing. It gives me the security of a cloud backup and the convenience of a cloud drive in one service. This works perfectly with in a Windows only environment. But is extremely problematic on Mac systems.
When I download photos from an iPhone to a MacBook, Carbonite will take days to upload the entire batch, whereas, Backblaze will finish within the hour. That is a remarkable speed difference. However, Backblaze does not make it easy for me to access files on the go. Currently, I use both. With Backblaze I know that my files are quickly backed up offsite. With Carbonite I know that eventually my files will be available and easily accessible wherever I am on any device.
There is one more difference which I won’t go into in depth because my technical understanding of the difference is limited. One of the differences among cloud backup providers is that some providers are using algorithms to identify identical files, so if everyone has a certain system file that gets backed up, there will not be one copy of the file for every account. Instead, there will be a shared backup for the same files. Backblaze to my understanding is one of the cloud backup providers which uses this method.
On the other hand, some cloud backup services isolate your backup and make an individual copy of every file which is kept in your backup location. There is no condensing the backup by identifying similar files. Carbonite to my understanding is one of the cloud backup providers which use this method. This difference may account for the length of time the initial backup takes. Using Carbonite the initial backup has to load every single file that will be backed up; whereas, Backblaze only has to backup differential files that are not already on it’s servers. The pros and cons of this difference are primarily a matter of preference. Do you want to be participating in sharing same files or prefer to be walled off in your own sandbox?
Also, Carbonites give you more flexibility on what to backup and what not to backup. Backblaze excludes certain system directories with no option to change this selection. Backblaze does allow you to exclude certain directories which Carbonite also does.
I can’t recommend one over the other because I can’t even choose one over the other. They both provide unlimited backups for reasonable prices with additional features available for more money such as backing up an external drive. Backblaze is ideal for Mac systems and Carbonite is ideal for Windows systems. But if you like the features of Carbonite such being able to make detailed selections on which files to backup or not, being in your own sandbox instead of using shared files based on a matching algorithm, and having web access to browse and preview individual files, then Carbonite on Mac systems offers more options. For most people though, I think the performance issues of Carbonite on Mac will make Backblaze the favored choice.
I’m going to start searching for a new solution that will have the speed of Backblaze and the functionality of Carbonite, if I find this solution I will make a new post and link back to this post.
dudgirl press 