Comments on: Carbonite sues hardware maker, reseller

Online data backup service alleges hardware manufacturer's products failed to work properly. According to one lawyer, customers whose data was lost may have few legal remedies.

[zkysr]

Carbonite should be ashamed of themselves.

Promise makes a good product to a certain point.

Carbonite obviously architected the infrastructure as cheap as possible and did not care about the customers interests. In my opinion they did not get anything less then they paid for but the customer did.

"Carbonite alleges that the Promise VTrak Raid equipment in several instances failed to recognize defects in the hard drives and transfer the data to another hard drive before the data was lost, said Thomas I. Elkind, attorney for Carbonite. "

What the hell is that? That should in an article of how RAID logic works on Wikipedia.

I could of set this up with about the same equipment and never had data loss. I might of had to set it up in a way that may of decreased the usable capacity and required a minimal amount of additional software or hardware, but hey it would still be lower cost than many other vendors.

This more about Carbonites greed and irresponsibility.

Where did the get the hard drives? They should sue the drive manufacturer while they are at it. Promise doesn't sell drives and integrate them like most RAID vendors. How about the "stupid" customer, sue everybody and take no responsibility.

"In no event will Carbonite .... be liable ... for any lost profits, lost data, interruption of business, or other special, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages of any kind... even if Carbonite has been advised of the possibility of such loss or damages,"

Why don't they just say "we knew but screw you"?

[pmfjoe]

"In no event will Carbonite .... be liable ... for any lost profits, lost data, interruption of business, or other special, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages of any kind... even if Carbonite has been advised of the possibility of such loss or damages,"

Actually I think you will find that in the terms of many companies, it is rather standard.

[Lerianis3]

It's also illegal. The fact is that if a business does not live up to the expectations of it.... they should be liable, unless they had the proper equipment and that equipment was defective.
Really, the courts need to make these types of codicils illegal. It's basically giving carte-blanche to the industry to screw over their customers....... and the customers then have no legal remedy whatsoever.

[sythara]

what else is new?

no, seriously?

[fgwgner]

I would never trust these people with my data backups. Just another ripoff company after your money

[pmfjoe]

Actually my experience with Carbonite has been relatively good, but you get what you pay for. For 59 or 69 dollars a year for unlimited backup space I use it as a third layer of safety and would never recommend anyone solely rely on it.

[dianibm]

I've used carbonite for years, only because I recommend it for older clients who refuse to backup on their own, many because it confuses them. So, referring them gets me so many free months, so I figured why not. Last year my subscription ran out, because I didn't refer as many people and I chose to go ahead and pay the $50, because it has come in handy so many times. I use it as an extra layer, in addition to my own backups. And when I did need to restore everything recently, I found it to be much easier to click "restore" on carbonite, than to get up and get my external hard drive over there on the shelf.

I have yet to see a problem with Carbonite, luckily, none of my clients, nor I were affected by this problem in 2007, I didn't even know about it until I read the article after the fact.

I do make sure to warn my clients that if Carbonite goes out of business or has their own crash you may lose all your data,but they take that risk, constantly promising me that they are going to use that external hd that I gave each of them, that is gathering dust in their closets. Services like Carbonite are excellent for those people that want to use their computer but not have to mess with "technical stuff".

[kieranmullen]

I purchased a Promise RAID card from newegg.com. After calling tech support found out that it did not work with ASUS motherboards in HP computers. Hmm That was not labeled anywhere. I asked what is being done? Nothing. Go contact the chip make SIIG. ??? SIIG does not deal with end users. I can understand that Promise does not take responsibility for its products first hand, they should be at least liable for the product they sold so the company can go get something that works.



KieranMullen
[CNET editor's note: Prohibited content deleted.]

[Lerianis3]

What? A RAID card wouldn't work with a certain motherboard? That seems kinda..... weird, considering that any PCI card is supposed to work in any motherboard that supports PCI. Same thing for PCI-X....... it's unibody, you can plug ANY card into your computer, and it should work.

[pmfjoe]

It has nothing to do with Promise, I have had the same problem with other RAID chip brands. Sometimes the system board has a on board RAID bios which has compatibility problems with certain other RAID bios' on add-on cards.

[gggg sssss]

please explain how you can have an Asus motherboard in an HP computer?

[xmazingue]

Dave Friend is one of the greatest communicator ! Whatever the news, as long as the Carbonite brand lands before people's eyes...
In the long term, too bad for him (and Carbonite's value) if customers' satisfaction is not his priority !
Unless he's ready to sell his business ????

Xavier
www.yooron.com

[jdereg]

Consider http://www.MyOtherDrive.com for online backup and file sharing.

[gggg sssss]

Another example of why SaaS, cloud and all similar marketing concepts is a pure rip off. Only an incompetent moron would trust any of them with their data.LOL P0rn maybe but nothing more valuable.

[CrashPlan-nl]

Conclusion: never bet on a single horse for your backup. Make backups to multiple locations.

[vchar]

Carbonite customers? data loss is not Promise?s fault. For some more context on this case, see Promise's response in a letter sent to customers this week at http://www.promise.com/support/Announcements.asp