Arcserve OneXafe vs. Barracuda Backup

For SMB file storage Exablox is great, but as an ESXi datastore it still needs work.

Incentivized

There are few scenarios that it's not well suited for as long as it's either VMware or Agent Based installations. I have not had success with directly backing up a non-Windows file share. I would definitely test the product first if you are not planning to directly backup through an agent.

Incentivized

• Exablox is simple to setup and relatively easy to use.
• Exablox is priced very competitively and is a good value for the cost.
• Exablox has good customer service.

Incentivized

• Quickness to deploy. You will not need an expert to get this up and running.
• Extremely intuitive interface: Brand new techs can pick this up without much training.
• Global Accessibility: The cloud interface allows administrators to access their backups from everywhere for quick restores after hours.

Incentivized

• Exablox is still in its infancy as a company and in some respects the product feels like a version 1.0.
• Integration with VMware ESXi has some bugs that need to be figured out.

Incentivized

• In some of the older version of the software, drilling down to restore a single files was quite the process. It's still a little slow to this day, but improvements have been made.
• It would be nice to have the ability to spin up a virtual machine directly on the backup appliance in the event of a failed server. At current time you need a Hyper-v or VMWare environment to restore a failed machine to.
• Once you put the device in cloud control mode, some of your options are limited when you log directly into the local appliance. I personally would like to see all the options remain the same so I can administer the device the same remotely and I would sitting in front of it.

Incentivized

The price for Exablox was very appealing. If we can resolve the NFS datastore issues we are seeing in VMware, this is a perfect solution for a ESXi datastore. Once that issue is resolved, I will give Exablox a higher rating.

Incentivized

Love the units

Incentivized

Again, the initial install, setup and config was simple through a web browser.

Incentivized

The front-end webpages are basic without to much clutter which makes finding what you are trying to do fairly easy.

Incentivized

Since the day we installed Exablox we have not had any down-time. The storage resources have been available 100% of the time.

Incentivized

SMB file access has been very responsive. We have not seen any slowness. Also, in using Exablox as tier 1 storage in our VMware environment, the VMs performed great. No slowness issues.

Incentivized

Exablox has been very responsive to our requests. They communicate very well and are extremely knowledgable

Incentivized

They are always quick to get you routed to a tech support person and always get follow up after contacting them. Last experience was amazing, she adjusted my boxes and they perform even better. I cannot say enough about the support. We had some trouble with one of the windows servers leaving the volume shadow copy out there and would fail. They worked with us to adjust and get working. After that it has been months since I have had to do anything with the server to keep the backups running.

Incentivized

Straightforward and simple implementation. We completed the implementation in less than 2 hours.

Incentivized

Work on a backup agent for Mac OS X or any Apple OS.

Incentivized

Exablox was much less expensive than other storage arrays and I think there are a lot of reasons to purchase them. I believe that as the product matures, it will be a great option for storage.

Incentivized

I'm much happier with how Barracuda lays out their console and user interface. Acronis is a great product and you do get what you expect. But to have a the learning curve personally cut by at least 50% is a great thing to have when it comes to training new members to the IT team and getting them up to speed of our procedures.

Incentivized

We have not tried to scale Exablox so we are not familiar with this.

Incentivized

• We purchased Exablox specifically for our ESXi environment, so we are hoping to get the wrinkles worked out to see a greater return on our investment.

Incentivized

• We've had a couple situations where we've had to pull data back down from the BBS cloud and while it can take a while sometimes, we haven't had an issue where we haven't been able to restore something that we needed. Overall it has been very reliable.
• We've had to implement two other backup systems in addition to Barracuda Backup and dedicate our BBSs to just mission-critical data because we're size-locked in our appliances. Upgrading to larger models is not financially viable at the moment and we can't expand their internal storage or point them to an iSCSI share or likewise. We brought in other systems to handle non-critical and virtual data because of those storage limitations.

Incentivized