Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review Starwind VTL is a great solution for customers that want the benefits of a physical tape library without the hefty price tag and the manual intervention required when changing tapes as it is automated. In addition, Starwind VTL virtual tapes are "air-gapped" as they are in LTO format.
Read full review Pros 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 Read full review Allows you to use Veeam and other software that uses Virtual Tape Libraries while getting rid of actual tape drives and tapes Backblaze B2 implementation is great - keeps storage costs low while automating backups to the cloud storage Low cost and great support by the Starwind technical team Feature-rich and in constant development Kevin Sipma Chief Technology Officer, Founder | We Help SMB Businesses Leverage Technology & Reduce Risk
Read full review Cons 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. Read full review Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review Their support is great and the interface is not as user friendly
Read full review Usability 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
Read full review The initial setup took some time, however, with the help of the Starwind technical team, we were able to set it up from start to finish including seamlessly adding it to our existing backup solution. After that, there was no need for any additional setup or troubleshooting.
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review Great and reliable product with little need for support
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
Read full review We've looked at physical tape backups, however, the infrastructure is too costly compared to Starwind VTL and it also requires manual changing of tapes that users will not want to do or forget to do. With VTL, it works exactly like a physical tape library with the same benefits and full automation.
Read full review Return on Investment 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 Read full review ROI was immediate as we got rid of expensive sneakernet backups with hard drives in a Pelican case One-time cost of the product is very cost-effective Support contracts are reasonable and we received excellent support throughout We have much better peace-of-mind with our data being protected better Kevin Sipma Chief Technology Officer, Founder | We Help SMB Businesses Leverage Technology & Reduce Risk
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