VaultGuard Backup vs Carbonite: an honest comparison

Let me give Carbonite real credit up front: it's been around for twenty years, it pioneered the whole idea of unlimited cloud backup for a flat price, and it does a lot. Automatic cloud backup, whole-machine image backup on its business plans, and bundled antivirus on the higher personal tiers. It's a capable, proven service.

So this isn't a "the big company is bad" page. The differences are narrower and more specific than that, and they come down to four things: whether anyone has ever proved your backup restores, how fast you can get your computer back, what the cheaper plans quietly leave out, and who's actually behind the product.

The short version

Choose Carbonite if you want an established, cross-platform cloud service with unlimited storage and built-in antivirus on its higher tiers, and you're comfortable storing your data in Carbonite's cloud.

Choose VaultGuard Backup if you're on Windows, you want a full image of the whole machine on a drive you own, you want it tested every week so you know it works, you don't want to climb tiers to back up your own video files, and you want a person who's actively improving the tool and answers your email.

Is Carbonite worth it?

Depends entirely on what you're protecting against, so here's the plain version.

Carbonite is worth it if you want your files copied somewhere safe without buying hardware or thinking about it again. It runs quietly, it's been doing this for twenty years, and if your laptop is stolen your documents still exist. That's a real thing to want, and it works.

Carbonite is not what you want if the question is "my computer died this morning, how do I open tomorrow?" Getting your files back is not the same as getting your computer back. Your programs, your settings, your Windows installation, the software your business actually runs on: those aren't in a file backup. You'd be rebuilding the machine from scratch and then restoring files onto it. For a home computer that's an annoying weekend. For a business, that's the week you don't get paid.

VaultGuard takes an image of the entire machine, so the recovery is the whole computer, back the way it was. And every week it pulls real files back out of that image to prove it still works.

Different tools, different questions. If your worry is losing files, Carbonite answers it. If your worry is losing the business, it doesn't.

Side by side

Is a sync folder already a backup?

This comes up more than any other question, and it's worth answering carefully, because "I already have OneDrive" is the reason most small businesses skip backup entirely.

Sync and backup look identical right up to the moment you need them, and then they behave completely differently.

Sync is a mirror. OneDrive, iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive: they exist to make the same folder appear on every device. That's useful and you should keep using it. But a mirror copies whatever it's shown.

Delete a file by accident, and sync deletes it everywhere. Save over a good document with a bad one, and sync saves over it everywhere. And if ransomware encrypts your folder, sync obediently uploads the encrypted version and overwrites your clean copy with it. Your files got to the cloud exactly as designed. They're just not your files anymore.

Most sync services keep a version history that can undo some of this, and it does save people. But it's a limited window, it's per-file, and finding out how it works while you're panicking is a bad time to learn.

Backup is a snapshot. It's a copy of how things were at a point in time, and it doesn't change because something on your computer changed. That's the whole difference. A backup from Tuesday doesn't care what happened on Wednesday.

So where does Carbonite fit? Carbonite is a real backup, not sync. It keeps versions, and it isn't trying to mirror your desktop. If you're comparing Carbonite against OneDrive or iCloud, Carbonite is the more protective of the two for the files it covers. That comparison isn't close.

The distinction that matters is a different one. Carbonite backs up your files. VaultGuard backs up your machine: Windows, programs, settings and files as one restorable image. So:

Sync folder only: convenient, and one bad click can take it with you.

Sync plus Carbonite: your files survive; your computer still has to be rebuilt.

Whole-machine image: the computer comes back, and you're working the same day.

You don't have to choose between them. Plenty of businesses should run sync for convenience and an image backup for recovery. They're solving different problems.

What about hybrid backup? That's the term for keeping a copy locally and a copy somewhere else, and it's the right instinct. Local is fast to restore from; the second copy survives the fire or the theft. VaultGuard does this by writing the image to a drive you own and keeping a second copy on another drive, or in a folder your own cloud service already syncs. We don't sell you storage, and we don't hold your data.

What Carbonite costs

Credit where it's due: Carbonite publishes their prices in a plain table, which is more than most of this industry does. These are their own published figures as of October 2026. Check their site for current pricing before you decide anything.

Personal plans, one computer each, unlimited cloud storage:

Basic: $95.99/year

Plus: $131.99/year

Prime: $161.99/year

Business plans, up to 25 computers, but storage is metered:

Core: $287.99/year, 250 GB included

Power: $799.99/year, 500 GB included

Ultimate: $1,299.99/year, 500 GB included

Extra storage on the business plans runs $99.99 per year for each additional 100 GB.

Three things in that table are worth knowing before you compare it to anything.

The cheapest plan doesn't cover external drives. Basic backs up your computer's internal drive only. If you keep photos, scans, or archives on a plugged-in external, and a lot of small businesses do, you need Plus or above.

Getting your data back can cost extra. Courier recovery, where they mail you a drive instead of making you download everything, is $99.99 per incident on Basic and Plus. Prime drops it to $9.99. On the business plans it's $175.99.

Two-year and three-year terms cost less per year, if you're comfortable committing that far ahead.

For comparison, ours are on the store page: one PC, or five machines at a flat rate rather than per machine, 14-day trial, no card. And we don't sell you storage. Your backup goes to a drive you own, and the second copy goes wherever you choose, so there's no per-gigabyte meter running.

Seeing a "CRB Backup" charge on your card statement?

That charge is Carbonite. On most statements it shows up as CRB*CARBONITE BACKUP 877-665-4466 MA, and the shortened version is what sends people to Google: "CRB" for Carbonite, "MA" because the company is based in Massachusetts, and the phone number is Carbonite's own customer service line. If it shows up once a year (or once a month) for the same amount, it is almost certainly a subscription renewing itself. Carbonite plans renew automatically unless you turn that off.

Three situations, three answers.

You signed up at some point and forgot it was still running. This is the common one. Sign in at account.carbonite.com > Subscriptions > Options > Turn OFF Auto-Renewal to stop future charges. If the renewal charge is less than 30 days old, Carbonite's refund policy allows a full refund on renewals, but you have to call them at that 877 number to get it. Turning off auto-renewal on your own does not refund a charge that already went through.

You never signed up for Carbonite. Then it isn't a Carbonite problem, it's a card problem. Call the number on the back of your card, dispute the charge, and ask for a new card number. Someone else may be paying for their backup with your card.

You're not sure. Call Carbonite at the number on the statement and ask which email address the account is under. That usually settles it in a minute.

One thing to do before you cancel

If you didn't recognize the charge, you probably haven't opened Carbonite in a long time, and that's worth a pause. A backup you forgot about is still a backup, right up until you cancel it. Carbonite permanently deletes your backed-up files 30 days after the subscription expires (60 on some plans). So before you turn it off, check two things: is the backup actually current (open the Carbonite app and look at the last backup date), and can you restore a file from it right now? If either answer is no, you were paying for something that wouldn't have saved you anyway, and cancelling costs you nothing. If both answers are yes, don't cancel until something else is protecting that computer.

That last question, "can I actually get a file back," is the whole reason VaultGuard Backup exists. It backs up the entire computer to a drive you own, and every week it pulls real files back out of the backup and compares them to the originals, so that question gets answered for you before you ever need to ask it. If you want to check your own backup right now, whatever it is, take the two-minute backup safety test. [link: /backup-safety-test]

Account steps and refund policy checked against Carbonite's support pages, September 2026.

The trade-off in their pricing table

This is the part most people miss, and it's visible right on Carbonite's own comparison chart.

Carbonite offers unlimited storage or whole-machine image backup, but never both on the same plan.

The personal plans (Basic, Plus, Prime) give you unlimited cloud storage. None of them do a whole-machine image. They're file backup, which Carbonite has never claimed otherwise.

Image backup only appears on the business plans, and not even on the entry one. Core at $287.99 doesn't have it either. The cheapest Carbonite plan that can restore a whole machine is Power, at $799.99 a year, and even then it covers one machine's image, and that's where the storage meter starts.

Run the arithmetic on a real small-business computer. A machine with about 800 GB on it, on the Power plan: $799.99, plus 300 GB over the included 500, at $99.99 per 100 GB. That's roughly $1,100 a year, and it covers one whole-machine image.

VaultGuard Backup is $149.99 a year for one PC, imaging the whole machine, to a drive you already own, and testing it every week.

That's not a criticism of Carbonite. They're a cloud storage company, and storage costs them money, so metering it is the honest way to run that business. But if what you actually need is your computer back, their pricing is built for a different customer than you.

What Carbonite does well

Credit where it's due:

Twenty years of track record. Carbonite was doing this before most of today's cloud existed, and the core service is reliable.

Unlimited cloud storage on its personal plans. No storage math.

It covers more than Windows. Macs and an Android app too.

Bundled antivirus. Plus and Prime include Webroot, so you get active malware and ransomware protection in the same subscription.

They'll mail you a drive. Courier recovery is available on every personal plan, cheap on Prime, and it's a real answer to a real problem.

24/7 support and automatic, continuous backup.

If unlimited cloud and cross-platform coverage are what you need, Carbonite is a fair, capable choice.

Where VaultGuard Backup is different

Carbonite and VaultGuard Backup overlap more than you'd think, so here's where they part ways:

It proves the backup works, every week. Carbonite backs up your files and trusts they'll come back. VaultGuard picks about fifty of your real files every week, pulls them back out of the backup, and compares them to the originals. The restored copies stay on your drive so you can open one yourself. Then it gives you a Safety Score from 0 to 100 for how much of your recovery has actually been proven, and the next step to raise it.

Your backups stay on drives you own. Carbonite stores everything in its own cloud, and 30 days after you stop paying, it's deleted. VaultGuard writes a full image to a drive you own and keeps a second copy on another drive, or in a folder your own cloud service already syncs. If your subscription lapses, nothing is deleted and your backups stay restorable.

Fast restores from a local drive. Carbonite is cloud-first; pulling everything back down means a long download (which is why they'll mail you a drive). VaultGuard Backup restores from the drive on your desk, at drive speed, and the recovery drive it builds can start the computer when Windows won't.

No tier games. Carbonite's cheapest plan quietly skips your video files and won't touch external drives, and no personal plan images the machine. VaultGuard Backup backs up your whole machine, on the one and only plan, full stop.

A person, not a line item. Carbonite is a twenty-year-old product that OpenText keeps running but isn't actively pushing forward. VaultGuard Backup is built, updated, and personally supported by me. When something's wrong, you reach the person who wrote it.

One thing worth knowing about restore speed

This is the difference that matters most on the worst day, so it's worth being specific. Carbonite keeps your backups in the cloud, which means getting everything back means downloading all of it. That's slow by nature, but a recurring complaint from Carbonite's own customers is that restores come down far slower than expected. Reviewers report being told by support that restore speeds are capped, with some describing full recoveries that would take weeks or longer, even on fast internet. Carbonite's own help documents say they don't limit restore speeds, so there's a real gap between the promise and what people describe living through.

I'm not telling you this to pile on a competitor. I'm telling you because the day you need a restore is the worst possible day to discover it'll take two weeks. VaultGuard Backup keeps the image on a drive on your desk, so a full restore runs at the speed of that drive, not the speed of a download queue. That's the whole reason the local copy exists.

What Carbonite does better

A comparison page that only lists the other product's weaknesses is an advertisement. Here's where Carbonite wins, because if one of these matters most to you, you should buy theirs.

They run on Mac. VaultGuard is Windows only. If your business runs on Macs, this comparison ends here and Carbonite is a reasonable answer.

There's no hardware to buy or manage. No drive to plug in, no drive to replace in four years, nothing to forget. If nobody at your business is going to remember a physical backup drive exists, a pure cloud service is the more realistic choice. The backup that actually happens beats the better backup that doesn't.

They back up continuously. Carbonite watches for changes and uploads them through the day. VaultGuard runs on a schedule you set. For a machine where documents change constantly, continuous means less potential loss between copies.

Twenty years and a support department. They've been doing this since 2005, with US-based phone support that reviewers consistently rate well. VaultGuard is one person in Kentucky. That cuts both ways. You get the person who wrote the software, and you get one person's hours.

They'll ship you a drive. If your data is too big to download comfortably, they'll mail it. That's a good answer to a real problem.

Where we're different is narrower than most comparison pages would admit: we image the whole machine so it comes back bootable, we check every backup and pull real files back out of it every week to prove it works, and your data goes to hardware you own instead of storage we rent you.

If that's the problem you have, we're built for it. If it isn't, buy theirs. That's a better outcome than buying ours and finding out it wasn't the fit.

So which one is right for you?

You want unlimited cloud storage, Mac and phone coverage, and you're fine in Carbonite's cloud: Carbonite is a reasonable, established pick.

You're on Windows, you want the whole machine imaged to a drive you own, tested every week, fast local restores, no tier exclusions, and a real person behind it: that's exactly who I built VaultGuard Backup for.

The dividing line: do you want your files in a big company's cloud on their terms, or your whole computer imaged, tested, and kept in your own hands?

Try it free. No credit card, no catch.

Take VaultGuard Backup for a 14-day free trial. No credit card required. Point it at a drive you own, let it image your machine, and see how it feels to have backup that's fast, tested, and yours.

And if you'd rather I just set it up for you, reach out. That's what I'm here for.

Start your free trial

David Martin
Information Security Kentucky LLC
Protect. Prevent. Prepare.
Hardin County, Kentucky