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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    FreeNAS

    Score5.4 out of 10
    N/AFreeNAS is an open source operating system that allows nearly any hardware serve as a network-attached storage device. It was developed by iXsystems.N/A

    Unitrends

    Score7.7 out of 10
    N/AThe Unitrends Recovery Series Backup Appliances are hardware developed for data backup and management. They cover enterprise backup, ransomware detection, recovery assurance, proactive monitoring, and cloud continuity into a single platform for organizations of all sizes.N/A
    Pricing
    FreeNASUnitrends
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    FreeNASUnitrends
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    FreeNASUnitrends
    Considered Both Products
    iXsystems
    No answer on this topic
    Kaseya
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    89%
    Would buy again
    170 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    91%
    Delivers good value for the price
    164 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    93%
    Happy with the feature set
    178 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    89%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    154 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    87%
    Implementation went as expected
    156 Answers
    Features
    FreeNASUnitrends
    Data Center Backup
    Comparison of Data Center Backup features of FreeNAS and Unitrends
    Feature
    FreeNAS
    -
    Ratings
    Unitrends
    7.5
    360 Ratings
    11% below category average
    Universal recovery00 Ratings6.8302 Ratings
    Instant recovery00 Ratings8.7290 Ratings
    Recovery verification00 Ratings7.3288 Ratings
    Business application protection00 Ratings6.5262 Ratings
    Multiple backup destinations00 Ratings8.0268 Ratings
    Incremental backup identification00 Ratings8.3338 Ratings
    Backup to the cloud00 Ratings6.5213 Ratings
    Deduplication and file compression00 Ratings8.0326 Ratings
    Snapshots00 Ratings7.3243 Ratings
    Flexible deployment00 Ratings7.37 Ratings
    Management dashboard00 Ratings6.17 Ratings
    Platform support00 Ratings9.07 Ratings
    Retention options00 Ratings7.57 Ratings
    Encryption00 Ratings8.36 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    FreeNASUnitrends
    Small Businesses
    DiskStation
    Score8.8 out of 10
    BDRShield
    Score6.5 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    DiskStation
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Bacula Enterprise
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    DiskStation
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Bacula Enterprise
    Score8.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    FreeNASUnitrends
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    8.0
    (372 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.9
    (25 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.3
    (16 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.2
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.6
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.9
    (23 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.1
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.7
    (12 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.1
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    3.8
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    FreeNASUnitrends
    Likelihood to Recommend
    iXsystems
    FreeNAS is well suited for most storage serving scenarios, whether it be for an office file server, backup destinations, data replication across the internet, or as backend storage for virtual machines. It can serve various types of clients via a plethora of standard protocols and can easily integrate with existing infrastructure using LDAP authentication and so on. It's pretty simple to use (it helps to have at least a basic understanding of the underlying technologies) and almost maintenance-free. One scenario that springs to mind that it may not be appropriate for (yet) is as S3 storage. However, S3 functionality was added in a recent release and may have improved greatly since then. I'm sure it will eventually work very well for this.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kaseya
    We have a traditional stack and pretty typical needs as a manufacturer. I have used and evaluated everything out there, but the Unitrends solution fits very well and was competitively priced. I would think if it fits us, it could fit anyone like us with a similar stack.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    iXsystems
    • The FreeNAS web interface is modern looking. It makes tasks like provisioning drives into raid volumes easy.
    • The ZFS raid option allows you to add in an SSD as a cache drive to increase performance.
    Incentivized
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    Kaseya
    • It has fully automated and customizable dashboards that can run with less administrative attention.
    • It should be able to run on virtual machines or be deployed as a virtual machine within MS Azure or AWS.
    • It's AI-based ransomware detection helps to understand data characteristics and alerts for ransomware attacks.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    iXsystems
    • Not good for beginners as it requires deep understanding of networking and storage.
    • Most of the good and required features are not available in free version.
    Incentivized
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    Kaseya
    • Errors on backup jobs could be more clearly explained. As the administrator of the device for my company, I often don't know what caused an error, and can't tell from the error information what happened or caused the error.
    • Updates of the devices should have an automatic option. It takes to much time to do an update to the devices if updates haven't been maintained.
    • Shutdown and restarting the device should be available from the main UI screen to eliminate some time when doing updates or if you're doing some maintenance on the device.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    iXsystems
    No answers on this topic
    Kaseya
    We have grown very attached to the Unitrends appliances and their use for recovery and other file restoration needs as well as data archival, data replication to other appliance and data migration to other servers or long term storage requirements. The appliances work well and the support for them is very good as well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    iXsystems
    No answers on this topic
    Kaseya
    I have never used such an easy product that is stable and scalable like Unitrends. I have been running backups for MANY years. On premise, tape, disk, cloud, you name it. Unitrends is very flexible, stable and has incredible reporting features. It's nice when management requests a report and it takes you 5 minutes to run it and dump it to PDF. How can you beat that?
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    iXsystems
    No answers on this topic
    Kaseya
    The appliances have been there when we need them and have rarely if ever gone down. Hardware issues have been resolved quickly.
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    iXsystems
    No answers on this topic
    Kaseya
    The hardware is adequate and speedy. The user interface responds quickly. Backups complete quickly.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    iXsystems
    There were some things that can be found by other users on forums and Google and some things that were not.
    Incentivized
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    Kaseya
    They're incredible, attentive, thorough. They make sure my issue is resolved and follow up. I'm usually behind on giving them a reply or an update. They have always gone above and beyond for me, and I'll continue to do the same for them.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    iXsystems
    No answers on this topic
    Kaseya
    It was sufficient to get started. It was not super deep. We called support often to get going.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    iXsystems
    No answers on this topic
    Kaseya
    The Unitrends employees involved in the installation were very friendly and knowledgeable. A certain degree of hiccups can be expected during any installation but never shook my confidence because of the friendly and knowledgeable team that was assigned to my project.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    iXsystems
    FreeNAS effectively uses all resources really well and it is highly recommended for in premises NAS. It has unlimited ROI as it is really free and open-source. The only payment we need to pay is when we need any support from those guys. FreeNAS helps us to effectively do our work with the legacy systems as it manages all the components really well. FreeNAS although rebranded to TrueNAS will still be there until our legacy systems run.
    Incentivized
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    Kaseya
    Symantec Backup Exec was the primary tool used for backups for years. We also used Veeam for some Office 365/Exchange backups. Unitrends once configured and set up works very well against the competition. Backup Exec interface was more user friendly. The search tool for exploring backups was much better than Unitrends as well. Unitrends is much faster if you need to restore an entire VM or large file folders. Also once you have Unitrends all set up, it is very low maintenance, it just works. If something fails 9/10 it will correct itself on the next backup that is scheduled to run
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    iXsystems
    No answers on this topic
    Kaseya
    Once you exceed the capacity of the appliances, you have to forklift a new appliance. This is very expensive.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    iXsystems
    • Low-Cost Network Attached Storage
    • Provides additional network storage to support client & business operations
    • FreeNAS secures our data using custom encryption keys
    Incentivized
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    Kaseya
    • It has saved some deleted file server data for our business department.
    • We have lost some reports for the business department due to an overlooked setting that make the backup reports look great, but the server was not being backed up in reality.
    • Less anxiety for the IT department, we have backup plan and that is worth a lot to us.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots