Backblaze Business Backup vs. Dell Avamar

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.

Incentivized

This software is well suited for companies that want to be very in control of their backups but need a simple tool. It could be convenient for them to just buy their own node, locate it in a different location, and set up the jobs for their machines to backup to the cloud with the specific plugins. However, it would not be convenient for companies looking to have a tool that needs to be secure and compliant, and that need to have different other options for business continuity.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Avamar performs data deduplication on the remote host. This greatly reduces the amount of traffic that each backup requires. This even applies to the virtual environment through change block tracking. Backup times are reduced from hours to minutes.
• The management interface makes it easy to configure and maintain data retention periods. Many times certain data must be kept for an extended period of time. There is a specific menu for managing retention periods.
• The system is able to recover itself from a hard failure with virtually no loss of backups. There is a checkpoint taken each day that provides a recovery point in the event of a catastrophic failure. Since this is a node based system, the loss of more than one node could require a recovery be performed.
• While another grid must be purchased, the replication utility allows all backups to be replicated to another grid at a remote location. This ensures the resilience of the backups in the event there is the loss of the primary data center.
• Also works on HCI devices performing image-level backups as in our primary data center environment
• There is also now an All-in-One appliance for smaller locations

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• The client interface has constant JAVA issues and can be slow and chunky. We have often had issues with current versions of JAVA breaking it so it will not even run.
• The backup clients are split out for function. Although this makes them light, it also makes it cumbersome to upgrade clients. The naming scheme can also be confusing for the clients.

Incentivized

I have been using the product for over five years. This has performed so well that with the current system reaching its End-of-Life with EMC next year, I have proposed replacing it with the latest version of the product. Now that it integrates with Data Domain, the cost has been greatly reduced. Instead of the need to purchase many nodes, one Data Domain can replace them creating a significant cost savings.

Incentivized

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.

The system overall is easy to monitor and see your backup/restore status. The user interface could use updating as it relies on Java and any updates to Java cause the interface to stop working need to be reinstalled

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Support is very convincing, always eager to solve issues from the root rather than workaround, don't hesitate to take webex, describe the issues to the core and recommend configuration to avoid further issues. We can ask few questions other than the main issue. They don't hesitate to answer.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Avamar has simplied the back up approach in their VE edition and is much easier to use than Data Protector. Backing up multiple VMs takes minutes instead of hours now. Creating policies, retentions, and schedules, is vastly improved and much easier.

Incentivized

• 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!

Incentivized

• Absolute Zero ROI
• This appliance does not work in its current state and to update we need to wait 2-3 months
• Can't wait to get rid of it and replace it with something else. (not even sure if we will be able to get it running before that)
• [I think] this is one of the worst mistakes we made

Incentivized