Likelihood to Recommend Backblaze does one thing and does one thing well: backup. If you recognize it for what it is, you will be very happy with it as an unobtrusive off-site backup solution. If, however, you want full-featured endpoint protection, you'll want to look elsewhere. For me and my needs, Backblaze provides the right amount of protection at a cheap price. You can't beat it.
Read full review Do you have VMWare? Yes I can back it up. Do you have Hyper-V? Yes I can back it up. That in itself should speak for itself. Altaro has really given a great deal into their software, not only making it easy to use, BUT also a really good and reliable product where you can support your workloads hassle-free, and super lightweight
Read full review Pros Backblaze utilizes a native app across platforms vs. a javascript app you find with other backup services (CrashPlan being one of them). Native apps function better and have a better user interface than comparable javascript apps. Backblaze has an intuitive interface that automatically backs everything up from your computer but allows you to easily exclude items you don't want or need to backup (applications, system files, etc.). Backblaze has a built-in bandwidth cap and monitor allowing you to limit how much data is backed up on a daily basis to prevent going over ISP data caps or utilizing all of your upload bandwidth. Read full review Fast and simple setup. I didn't need to read through ANY documentation to set up and have a backup running. Easy and cost-effective licensing. I didn't need to count CPU's or VM's or other random facts to work out my licensing. Just how many hosts, and then one of 3 feature levels of which two have unlimited VM licensing. Hosts x Feature Set = Cost. Easy Restores. Backing up is one thing, but restoring and having confidence in the restore is another. It just works, simple and effective. Help is easy to find if you need it. From within the app, it gives you options of email, phone, and live chat, which is usually available even with odd time zones in play. Read full review Cons User management isn't the greatest. We had the choice of either a site license under one email address, or a domain license, allowing users to log in with their own email address, however there's no management for this option. I can see metrics of the users' backup, but I can't manage the accounts in any way. Read full review More cloud-based storage options. Currently, only Azure is supported, which is excellent, but it would be good to have AWS and Google storage options too. It would be AWESOME if they could do a restore from Azure cloud direct to an Azure VM instance. Currently, you need to set up an Azure VM machine with nested Hyper-V, install Altaro on that, and then restore into a nested VM, this gets crazy expensive. Better notification of errors, or more around having a threshold, so if it misses one backup of a constant backup that happens every 5 minutes but recovers at the 10 minutes back, it is ok. Just think it needs to identify significant or long-running issues better than the occasional little issues. Read full review Likelihood to Renew It simply works and it is making our lives easier. The renewal process is also really good
Read full review Usability As stated in my review, Backblaze simply works and works simply. You install it. It runs silently in the background storing and safeguarding all your computer data remotely. You seldom notice it until you've lost something you need - then you can quickly find it online using their interface and restore it - which is what's really important.
Read full review A lot of people in the technical industry deliver what I would call snack crackle pop topics, where the software gets over complicated, and they drown people in all the "fancy" features. Altaro, from my point of view" has designed the software to be super usable, easy to implement, as well as support. It is really one of the best designs
Read full review Support Rating They answered any questions I had accurately and politely. I prefer to call a phone number and get a human on the phone, but they prefer email and chat. I understand they have business profits to consider, so it makes sense.
Read full review One of the most important benefits of the Altaro HyperV backup solution is the support. From the free edition, you're able to chat with the support that can assist you in a remote session an find a quick solution that solves the issue. It is always available. The email support is also.
Read full review Implementation Rating Altaro has really designed their product so well that you can honestly implement this within a couple of minutes
Read full review Alternatives Considered It's honestly been so long that I've been using Backblaze - maybe 10+ years - that I don't even remember other options I compared it to way back when. I've had a subscription on all of my personal machines for years, and we've used it on all of our machines at my job for the past six.
Read full review The only other competitor I am personally familiar with is Carbonite. I use that for file-level backups throughout my network and it works well but while it does offer backups for virtual machines, I have never found it to be a reliable option. Jobs failed for me regularly for no apparent reason. In the handful of times I have needed support, they were helpful and straight-forward.
Read full review Return on Investment The saving of data is almost immeasurable - Backblaze is the best backup company I've ever used. Getting started is quick and easy - and you get a 14-day trial. The price is cheaper than every other service - but don't tell them! Read full review Restoring our primary ERP VM has already saved many hours of rebuilding from data backups, so that in itself already gave us an excellent ROI for having Altaro running. The quick and easy setup also makes sense for a fast ROI as we didn't need to spend much time or effort in its set up. Lastly, any other restores we have done for retrieving files or testing backups were so simple and easy to do that the process didn't take long and saved us time and cost. Read full review ScreenShots