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Datto is good for small business
November 21, 2019

Datto is good for small business

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Datto

I've used Datto to backup the entire enterprise, all servers and data, and sync it to the cloud. IT are the only ones with access, but it affects everyone in every department essentially, since they all have data on the servers or require the servers to remain up and functional. With Datto, I know I can always spin up a VM right on the box in case of a failure, or in worst case scenarios, run them from the cloud.
  • Backups: Datto does what it's supposed to do, backing up data from servers (and workstations, if need be), and then syncing that data to the cloud.
  • Initial setup: Initial setup is pretty straightforward, in most cases the agent installs remotely from the device.
  • UI: The UI is fairly straightforward and intuitive, at least for IT professionals. It is not difficult to find things or figure out what settings do what.
  • Initial backup sync: The downside to the cloud backup is that, if you have a lot of data, you need an external hard drive to seed to the cloud. And you usually have to request this after you've already got everything else working.
  • Unsyncing: We have pretty decent bandwidth, but with 8TB of data, we'd get syncing issues with the cloud servers every 3 months or so. The only way to address it was to request another external drive and resync it, but that also meant losing the older data.
  • Availability and support: Datto only operates through MSPs and VARs, and will not help you directly without putting in a ticket with your provider. This causes delays, and extra epenses, and if you grow beyond the need for an MSP, you have to keep them around for at least that piece.
  • There was one major incident where we were infected with RansomWare. After shutting down the file server, I was able to use the Datto to restore the data while, at the same time, running it as a VM from the backups. I don't recall how many bitcoins the attacker wanted, but it saved us at least that, plus all the man-hours it would have required to deal with the data corruption, whether we paid the ransom or not.
  • A server died one day, as they sometimes do, but we were able to maintain operations because the Datto ran them as VMs.
  • The initial cost was pricey, since we needed 2 units for all of our data. Monthly was also costly, but we felt at the time it was worth it to have reliability in our backups.
  • Veeam Backup & Replication
Datto is an all-inclusive solution with minor set-up. It's almost turnkey. Veeam requires more knowledge and setup, plus additional storage, although it is more robust and more granular. Datto includes the cloud element built-in, whereas it is something extra with Veeam. For a larger enterprise, Veeam makes more sense just because you'll need that kind of granular control and you'll want to manage it internally (without an MSP), but for small businesses, Datto was perfectly capable and cheaper.
It is really difficult to get direct support from Datto. We always had to go through our MSP, who charged us their hourly rate to put in a ticket with Datto support. Datto would then call the MSP, who would call us and conference us in, so we could work with Datto support. That's clunky and unnecessary. In addition, most of the solutions tended to be "delete all your backups and start over".

Do you think Datto SIRIS delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Datto SIRIS's feature set?

Yes

Did Datto SIRIS live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Datto SIRIS go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Datto SIRIS again?

Yes

Datto is a fine device for a very small business, the kind of business that already requires external IT partners. I would say, also, that the ideal business should not have huge deltas in data change, or they may have issues syncing to the cloud. That said, it works great for what it does, and being able to spin up a server on the device itself while the hardware is repaired or replaced is absolutely a saving grace.

Once a business grows to the point of large data storage and/or having their own, fully-functional internal IT team, there are better products out there. At that point, the costs would comparable.