Carbonite Takes Over My Processor!

I highly recommend you test a whole library.

I created a small library with a single project in it. Once it had been backed up to Carbonite, I delete it and restored it. The library was totallu unusable. It could not be repaired either. That is when I gave up on Carbonite and the other online backups for good.

Allan

I've replaced my hard drive after it crashed. My computer is an IMac (updated to MountainLion) , not quite 2 yrs old. I signed up with Carbonite 2 yrs ago and now need it to do a 'restore' of all my files. After 3 weeks I'm still trying to restore!!!! My computer keeps freezing up and have to restart it. The computer gets very hot with temps as high as 118 degs. I've been in touch 'regularly' with Carbonite, much of the time I'm put on hold. This time I've been waiting for over an hour. Guess they don't want to talk to me anymore. What's my next step? How do I check on my cpu usage?

If you don't have any additional backups besides Carbonite, you can just start over again without any of your old data curtsey of Carbonite.

As far as CPU usages goes I would suggest that you uninstall Carbonite for starters. If the CPU usage it still high then you can use Activity Monitor to trace down why after that.

Allan

I'm beginning to believe that about Carbonite. Anyhoo how do I get to view all CPU usage?

I spoke with a Carbonite tech who said they would move me up to the next 'level' (whatever that means) to help resolve my 'problem'. I'll believe it when it happens.

I have a 1 tb Lacie but it didn't back up the files I need right now. I do have some files/photos saved on Icloud.

Have you ever tested a restore from Carbonite?

I was considering using it for backup but first it had to pass the test of restoring files in a usable manner.

It failed miserably. All of the libraries I had on my Mac that were databases were restored in a totally unusable format.

The even send me a copy via the mail which was no better. After that exposure to Carbonite it has not been seen around here again.

As far as CPU usage goes, read http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/activitymonitor.html

Allan

No. Never tested it, was told 2 years ago it was a great backup system. Not recommending it from now on! Thx for the CPU info.

Well maybe I have the wrong attitude when it comes to backup but I trust no one. I only believe it to be good after I test it.

I figure when you need a backup it is because of a disaster. The last thing you need during a disaster is to find out that your backup is no good.

I am certainly glad that I tested Carbonite and a number of other network backup system only to discover they are all equally bad when it comes to restore databases in a usable format.

So I have given up on any network backup solution.

Allan

I've recently had a very similar eperience. About 5 months after I purchased my 1 year subscription with Carbonite the hard drive on my 15" MacBook Pro crashed. I was pretty pleased that I had all my files backed up on Carbonite. Replaced the hard drive, logged onto Carbonite and presto, nothing. Didn't work. Just kept freezing up and then nothing. Had some long conversations with Carbonite tech team who bumped up to the "engineers" who would try to determine and solve the problem. It's now been at least 3 or 4 weeks and I haven't heard back. If I had relied solely on Carbonite I would have been hooped - all my business files, as well as everything else was on Carbonite. Fortunately I also backed up to Time Machine regularly. Restarted my MacBook using Time Machine and restored my whole hard drive, no problem. That impressed me. Carbonite did not.

Carbonite took all my resources as well. I found it too slow to backup my files, and it never made it more than 250 GB of data. I stopped using Carbonite. I was able to back up all 450 GB of my files with CrashPlan in about two weeks. Goodbye Carbonite.

This is still happening on Mavericks. In fact, the new Activity Monitor features in Mavericks show that by far Carbonite is the most CPU-intensive and energy-sucking application that I run daily. CarboniteDaemon is always at the top of the Energy Impact and CPU Time lists. I'm getting about 3 hour battery life now when I was getting 7-8+ hours on a clean install of Mavericks (before I installed Carbonite).

I contacted Carbonite support and a technician remoted in, reinstalled Carbonite, and disabled the backup of certain sets of files (mainly the Library folder). It seems like it has improved things slightly but I still see CarboniteDaemon spike to over 100% occasionally. If my battery life over the next few days doesn't improve significantly, I will likely be canceling with Carbonite and moving to Backblaze. I looked at CrashPlan but their Mac client is based on Java and has issues with RAM usage and performance as well (see http://oleb.net/blog/2013/11/crashplan-experience/).

It's disappointing that the company can't get one of the fundamentals correct. A quality native client is step 1 to a good cloud backup service.

On another note, would it be possible to get this moved to the Mavericks section? This isn't really relevant to Snow Leopard anymore.

Since iPhoto works as a relational database, the "iPhoto Library" file you see in your pictures folder actually has thousands of files inside. If you right-click on this file and select "Show Package Contents", you'll be able to see all of the database files inside. These database files contain your album and event structure & the majority of each photo's metadata.

Carbonite sees this "packaged" iPhoto Library as a folder, rather than one file, so that it can back up these files over time rather than try to send one 50 GB file over two weeks time. Due to the complexities of the iPhoto Library's database files, restoring it can be a little tricky.

There are several ways you can restore the library, and depending on your situation and the reason you need to download your data, the default restore process might not be for you. If for example, you use iPhoto daily, and you need access to the iPhoto application while Carbonite is downloading your data, it's best to create and use a temporary iPhoto Library until your one that was backed up is fully downloaded. That way, at the end of the download process you'll have two libraries that you can combine easily.

If you *don't* need access to the iPhoto app, and can wait until the download process completes, then restoring the iPhoto Library into your pictures folder will work just fine, with one caveat > you need to make sure that there isn't *already* an iPhoto Library in that location.

If Carbonite sees that iPhoto databases already exist in that location, it will *not* restore *your backed up databases*, because it doesn't want to overwrite data that's already on the computer. And since Carbonite sees the library as a folder, it won't restore your album structure, but it will restore your photo and video files.

>>So when people say that the photos came back in a jumbled mess and all the albums were gone, that's because they were using iPhoto while Carbonite was trying to download it, and the iPhoto application had already created empty database files in the place where Carbonite was trying to download your information.

If you need to download your iPhoto Library from Carbonite, and there's already an 'iPhoto Library' in your pictures folder, all you need to do is *re-name* the iPhoto Library that is there, and double-click it so that the next time you open iPhoto, iPhoto won't create empty database files in the place that Carbonite is trying to put your database files.

[Also > the same thing can happen with iTunes Libraries, but it's not as common because the structure of the iTunes library isn't nearly as complex]

I did not say; "So when people say that the photos came back in a jumbled mess and all the albums were gone "

What I said was that all of the adjustsment and the vast majority of the metadata I put on all of my photos was either gone or wrong.

I know better that to continue using an application when there is a restore in progress.

The way I tested Carbonite was I created another partition with Carbonite and OS X plus the application I was testing. I create a smal version of my Photo Library and had Carbonite back it up. I then deleted the copy of my Photo Library on the test partition. After that I restored from Carbonite and then tested the restored library. It was then that I discovered that Carbonite was unable to restore the library in a useable format. Yes the photos were there but everything else in the library was not there in a usable format.

After discovering this about Carbonite, I decided to test other online backup systems that I could download a demo copy for. I discovered that none of them worked reliably. It was at that time that I decided to never use online backup.

Carbonite keeps a record of all files that it ever tried to back up, so even when you make the backup set smaller, your Carbonite Backup Index stays the same size. (The Backup Index acts as an archived list of the backup set; file names, locations, metadata, when files were editted, etc). When these indices are extremely large, it's tough for the CarboniteDaemon to read them, which ramps up the CPU.

[I'd also like to note that the ~/Library folder contains thousands of cache folders (some of which, Time Machine doesn't even bother backing up).]

The best way to make sure Carbonite doesn't hog your CPU is to do the folllwing:

1) Delete the backup on the Carbonite servers (you'll need to send an email to customer care to do this).

2) Once you get confirmation that your backup was deleted, log into the Carbonite website and click "Install"

3) During the installtion, [this part is *ESSENTIAL*], select >>> "I'll manually slect what to back up later", then click 'Next' and complete the install.

4) When the Carbonite prefernce pane opens, click the 'Backup' tab and navigate to your home folder, then select your files and folders that you want backed up. [do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT back up your 'Applications' folder... since each time a file is opened/editted, Carbonite flags that file for backup. This means that if you select a .app file, every time you open the application, Carbonite will try to back it up > killing CPU]

5) I recommend that you go through the Library folder with caution and only select *files* (not folders) you know you need > do *not* just select folders that you recognize the names of.

(You can also call customer care to assist with this process, but keep in mind, these are files on *your computer*, so if you don't know what it is, then it's likely the representative that assists you won't know either.)

And, I agree with you, I wish they had done more intensive software testing to catch issues like this before it was released.

Even simpler way is to delete Carbonite.

Allan