Not recommended for large installations.
March 17, 2021
Not recommended for large installations.
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Modules Used
- Unitrends Recovery Series Backup Appliance
Overall Satisfaction with Unitrends Data Center Backup and Recovery
We purchased the product with expectations beyond what it can competently deliver on a small company-wide backup; this product was chosen on a recommendation from our VAR.
It fails to meet any and all expectations except for the most simple file backup; doesn't handle large files/database, vm images, user equipment, etc. without additional challenges. SQL backup is a non-starter with this product.
Backup speed is acceptable, restore speed is abysmal, tech support is pretty good, but we won't be using the product on next refresh.
- Low cost.
- Good reporting of when it goes sideways (failed backup).
- Tech support is good and necessary.
- The graphical UI makes assumptions that work for basic backup challenges, but forces us to tech support or in our case work on exit strategy.
- vSphere integration is abusive to the cluster (freezes, snapshot); creating a 5TB snap of a 5TB VM doesn't work well; especially when VM image crosses multiple data stores.
- VSS reliance is a non-starter in our heavy I/O environment.
- Restore rate is unbelievably slow. - data de-duplication inefficiencies?
- Inability to set multiple VLANs on network ports, increasing router workload.
- iSCSI integration of backup copy is a joke though UI, check our service tickets.
- When you finally accept its limitations it does reasonably well, but has failed objectives.
Do you think Unitrends delivers good value for the price?
No
Are you happy with Unitrends's feature set?
No
Did Unitrends live up to sales and marketing promises?
No
Did implementation of Unitrends go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Unitrends again?
No
Sytos - (I haven't seen for years) - Excellent performance, clean UI, did it job.
Retrospect - Handled 'rollup' backups (kind of like incremental forever), excellent job of desktop/laptop user backups. We would be still using this product for DT/LT had it remained under original ownership. Retrospect is not suitable for our enterprise storage needs.
Backup Exec worked well before Norton purchase, I understand they divested if so will look again.
Veeam was first choice for enterprise storage, but VM freeze disqualified them, was told that Unitrends doesn't do that but it does.
I plan on inviting these two contenders to our next technology bake-off, will be looking to add others.
Backup Exec (If no longer a Norton product).
Commvault