Item: Unitrends
Rating: 9
Author: Mike Musil

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Unitrends backs up our server that we operate our estimating and accounting software, as well as our user folders and active directory.
We use it to back up 4 virtual servers, and the host (Hyper-V). The backups are stored on a NAS and backup copies to an external drive off of the NAS.

Pros and Cons

Scheduling jobs is made fairly easy.
Reporting of backups and protection is informative.
Error reporting in very detailed.

A switch to enable a basic/advanced or expert mode.
Offer more info by hovering the mouse over some of the choices in setting up a job that might help one decide which choice would better suit them.
In the backup catalog, make it easier to identify which backups are on which offsite storage media.

Return on Investment

I am not in the accounting department, but the license fee isn't ridiculous.
Free version offers quite a bit of functionality, but with limits.
Loss of data is a huge problem to recover from and would be very costly.

Key Insights

Do you think Unitrends delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Unitrends's feature set?

Yes

Did Unitrends live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Unitrends go as expected?

Would you buy Unitrends again?

Yes

Alternatives Considered

When I took over managing our IT infrastructure, Unitrends was already in place.

Likelihood to Recommend

This works well for our relatively small office, as we backup less than a TB of data. It seems well suited for our needs, and I can see where it would also serve well on a much bigger scale. If you want a simple, easy to use interface, this product might be a little too complicated.

Unitrends Backup is good but complicated

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Unitrends Data Center Backup and Recovery