Those who are not familiar with this company think that when they restore files from Carbonite, he would need to go through a complicated and tedious process. But this couldn’t be further from the truth as Carbonite Backup is one of the most user-friendly online backup services available today. The company has made a name for itself as the leading service provider in the industry and takes pride in its affordable services, and backup and restore process that are so simple, you don’t need to be a geek or a techie to figure them out.

If you are ever faced with the task of restoring your files after reformatting your hard drive or after a computer crash, the first thing you would need to do is download the Carbonite software again. As soon as you do this, the setup wizard will ask you to choose from two options – restore your files later or restore your files now. If you opt to restore them immediately, you will then be asked if you prefer the files downloaded to their original locations, or choose specific files for specific users. Most users would choose option one but even the more advanced option is relatively easy with detailed instructions.

In restoring files from Carbonite, you also have the choice to restore a single file or an older file version. To do this, first you would need to go to My Computer, where Carbonite is listed as a virtual drive. Open the drive and go through it just as you would any other computer drive. You should be able to find all your files there. Once you locate the particular file you want to restore, highlight it, and click Restore to download it back to its previous location. You may also click Restore To to send the file to another location. If you want to restore an older version of a particular file (up to three months back), click on Restore Previous Version.

However, you have to know about some limitations to Carbonite as well. You will not be able to restore files from Carbonite very quickly if they are huge. A file that is a few hundred megs could take hours or even days depending upon the speed of the servers. Carbonite servers can be fairly slow, but that is how they are able to offer such an affordable price. In the event of a system crash, where you lose all of your data, you may not care if it is slow so long as you get all of your files back. However, if you need to restore an important document very quickly, you may be left waiting for a bit.

Carbonite is far from perfect, but it could be the best option you have. It has its flaws yes, but for the fee they are charging, they are entitled to some. Other companies offer practically the same services, but at a price ten times higher. Plus, you won’t need to jump through hoops when you restore files from Carbonite so on the whole, you get everything you would need from an online backup service.

Every year, 43 percent of computer users lose irreplaceable files. Carbonite automatically and securely backs up the irreplaceable contents of their computers – no matter how much stuff they need to back up. It takes just a few clicks to restore lost files.

Working quietly in the background, Carbonite installs a small application on your computer, looking for new and changed files that need to be backed up. There’s no new interface for you to learn — it looks and feels just like part of your computer, and it integrated with your desktop.

Restoring lost files is easy if anything happens to your computer. To restore a specific file or folder, simply open the Carbonite Backup Drive from your desktop. In the backup drive, files and folders are organized exactly as they are on your computer. Locate the specific file or folder, right-click and select “restore.” The file will be restored to its original location on your hard drive by the software. You will also have the option of restoring the file to a new location, by selecting “Restore to…” or recovering a previous version of the file by selecting “Restore previous versions…”

The way to restore everything in your backup to a new or repaired computer is as follows: go to carbonite.com, click the restore tab, log in to your account and restore your files. The Carbonite Restore Wizard will help you restore all of your files to your new computer with just a few clicks.

Once installation is complete, the Carbonite software looks for files to back up by scanning the hard disk. Carbonite automatically backs up all file types except executables (such as .exe and .dll), system files, temporary files and video files. However, any of the excluded file types can be manually added to the backup by right-clicking on the file and selecting “Back this up” from the Carbonite menu. Ninety five percent of Carbonite users prefer to stick with the default settings despite the fact that Carbonite offers a wide variety of options for customizing your backup upon setup.