DiskStation is a line of network-attached storage (NAS) solutions from Synology headquartered in Taiwan.
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Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365
Score 8.8 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 is a BaaS (Backup as a Service) solution used to back up and restore Microsoft 365 data, including Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams data.
I had a very old Buffalo Tera station that had a very hard to reinstall OS and it was a very slow system (personal). Since coming on to my current job, we have had exclusive use of Synology DiskStation, so I can't compare it to anything else. Previous previous jobs, we have …
We have been using other Veeam products [for] a long time. They are easy to use and very reliable. Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 is the gold standard in backups for a reason. The products work great and the support is excellent if you need it. No other product I …
Active Backup for Office 365 by Synology is pretty impressive too. It is license-free so long as you bought the right NAS from Synology (not all models support it)
The Synology DiskStation is well suited as a NAS solution, easy enough to mirror a Windows file server shares setup. Access to the Hyperbackup utility eliminates the need to purchase a tape backup solution. A portable USB drive can be used as the initial backup target. For air gap purposes can connect Hyperbackup to the various cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, GCP to copy backup data there. Utilizing it as a backup solution has also been great, instead of purchasing a tape solution, tapes and an offsite tape repository. Active Backup for Business is another excellent backup utility for physical servers, VMWare virtual machines, etc. Restoring files is fairly intuitive. Until Synology introduced the dual controller setup, using it as a SAN was less appropriate as there was occasional downtime when the controller had an issue but this was less important for the scenarios we were using it for. It would be more of a concern if we had used it for things that require more robust uptime requirements. Overall we are happy with the features of the Synology DiskStation.
Analyzing campaign performance is a great area where the Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 is well-suited, and it’s working well. In the past, when we analyzed campaign performance, we had to use outside vendors, which was a time-consuming, laborious, and costly process.
Synology DiskStation offers lots of options for creating links to share files or request that some uploads files. It makes it really easy to just share a link that can have an expiration or a set number of times it is accessed.
We always had enough storage on our Synology DiskStation, we never had to worry about something being too big to upload or share.
Love how you can create folders that are shared and also have some that are private. This makes it so easy to have shared collaborations with coworkers or clients, but also allows you to have a private place to save things that only you need.
While BTRFS is a more advanced file system than ext4, it also is in a perpetual state of development, with many features not fully functional and a plethora of bugs. Synology has managed to overcome many of these limitations by placing BTRFS on top of a LVM, but there are much better file systems that Synology could have used, such as OpenZFS.
DSM's built-in backup software, HyperBackup, while robust, oftentimes runs into issues. Specifically, backups can be working fine for months or years, and then suddenly the backups will fail. Sometimes these failures can be resolved, but oftentimes the backups need to be completely restarted. Fortunately, even when the backup fails, the existing backups are still accessible, it is just that new backups can not be performed.
The underlying Linux OS provides significant benefits, but also adds a fair amount of complexity. Most of that complexity is wonderfully hidden by the DSM interface, but when certain problems arise, delving into the Linux command line is not out of the question.
Perhaps the biggest issue with Synology DiskStation is Synology's support. The issue isn't that the support is bad, but it can be frustratingly slow when dealing with a major issue. Synology does have a very active community that is always willing to help, but nothing beats first-party support.
I would like the option to remove users from the backup and set them to an alternate storage location/ archive location. Currently, my backups are at 7 TB, and I would like to segment out data with lower data retention requirements.
As long as Synology give us support for our hard drivers we will not change. I know Synology has now forced their hands to buy their own hard drivers and their new line of products. But if we still have support for old hard drivers from other manufacturers then we will still use Synology Nas. Otherwise we change manufacturers
Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 just works so well and is so easy to use. I researched multiple options for Office 365 backup and none seemed to be as easy to setup and use as Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 and the pricing was very comfortable to us. I can't imagine any reason why we would change away from Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365.
The Synology DiskStation is easy to set up and manage. The interface is clean and features are well documented. These units are reliable and can be set up to do scheduled integrity checks so failures can be mitigated before they halt business operations. The available packages for expanded roles makes these devices versatile.
The interface is simple, but powerful. It's easy to setup, easy to use. It's able to restore individual files and emails with ease. Would like to see the wording on some features cleared up, as it's caused us some confusing learning the tool.
We have a lot of data, and pulling backups out of the store sometimes takes a bit of time - but this is within acceptable tolerances. I don't expect restores to be instantaneous, and I can't quantify if the speed is software or data repository.
Unfortunately, the one time I've had to reach out to DiskStation support, it did not go well. My NAS appliance wasn't appearing on the network, and no matter what the support team tried, they could not get it back online. Instead of offering to send me a new unit, they told me to go buy a new one - obviously, this was a disappointing response and not very eco-friendly either! Fortunately, through some internet research of my own, and some ingenuity, I figured out I could restore my NAS to factory settings by removing all the drives and resetting. Only then did I realize I had a bad disk. I had to experiment for a while to figure out which one it was. Once I had done that, though, I was able to get the latest DiskStation loaded back on, no thanks to the DiskStation support crew. If notifications were rock solid, I suspect I would have caught the bad disk before it because an OS problem, but I never received a bad-disk notification.
The setup support we received was extremely helpful. They allowed us to learn as they created the policies and managed the handoff between setup and guided setup very well. This resulted in active, usable policies and us having the knowledge to adapt these as our needs change in the future.
Synology DiskStation packs a punch with the latest and greatest feature set which goes above and beyond many other vendors. It allows for a turn-key solution to cover almost every use case in the SMB market leaving other vendors behind.
First and foremost, Veeam's reputation stood out. They have been a leader in the backup vendors for a few years. That reputation along with recommendations from colleagues sold us on Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365. The other vendors that we did demo's with were lacluster in setup and performance. Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 immediately won us over.
The only real impact is from a compliance standpoint. Our company is expected at a regulatory level to be protecting our data and even though the tenant has little traffic there could still be some regulated data in there. We have to be able to tell an auditor that it's being backed up by an enterprise grade solution, and that's what VDC was intended for.
