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Unitrends Recovery Series Appliance for your Serious Recovery needs!
Updated September 09, 2016

Unitrends Recovery Series Appliance for your Serious Recovery needs!

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

Overall Satisfaction with Unitrends Recovery Series Backup Appliance

Our Unitrends Recovery Series Backup Appliance is being used to back up all on-premise agency data on a daily basis. This includes data from an on-premise Exchange server, multiple SQL servers, multiple files servers, finance and HR application servers, and AD domain controllers. Additionally once the backup completes, the appliance automatically copies it to the Unitrends cloud for redundancy and to meet archiving requirements. Compared to our previous backup solution, the Unitrends Recovery Series Backup Appliance was much easier to configure and allowed us to easily incorporate cloud backups.
  • The Unitrends Recovery Series Backup Appliance provides excellent deduplication of data, saving many terabytes of hard drive space.
  • The Unitrends Recovery Series Backup Appliance integrates easily with many cloud storage providers, including Amazon and Rackspace. However, the Unitrends Forever Cloud was the option we chose for its automatic retention policies.
  • The web interface on the Unitrends Recovery Series Backup Appliance is intuitive and easy to use. Creating backup or restore jobs is a snap!
  • The web interface can be a little buggy at times. Logging out and back in seems to resolve that though.
  • The Unitrends Recovery Series Backup Appliance does not work with XenServer which is our hypervisor of choice. It does however work with VMware and Hyper-V.
  • The initial backup jobs took a really long time. However once they completed, subsequent jobs completed rather quickly because the appliance only back ups up changes.
  • Having a backup solution that can replicate to the cloud has given us great peace of mind. We feel more confident that we can recover data should the need arise.
  • When recovering data, I no longer have go drive offsite to find the correct tape. With the Recovery Series Appliance, all backup data is readily accessible from the web interface so we can restore files much faster.
  • With built-in encryption features of the Recovery Series and a BAA from Unitrends, we are able to more easily meet HIPAA compliance standards.
Backup Exec was an OK product before Symantec ruined it. It was always a cumbersome product to use and had its fair share of glitches but after Symantec bought Veritas, it got a lot worse. The Recovery Series Appliance is more superior in almost every way: less glitches, more storage
choices, greater backup policy control, better scheduling choices. The only thing that Recovery Series lacks that Backup Exec had, was a broader range of retention policies.
If you need to backup a XenServer environment, the Recovery Series won't work. You will have to use the Unitrends Enterprise Backup virtual appliance. Of course that virtual appliance is going to need storage!

For all other scenarios, the appliance works great. It easily backups up any server that can accept the Unitrends backup agent software. If you don't want a piecemeal backup solution with separate hardware, software, and storage, the Recovery Series is where it's at.

Unitrends Feature Ratings

Data Center Backup
10.0
Universal recovery
Not Rated
Instant recovery
10
Recovery verification
Not Rated
Business application protection
10
Multiple backup destinations
10
Incremental backup identification
10
Backup to the cloud
10
Deduplication and file compression
10
Snapshots
Not Rated

Using Unitrends Recovery Series Backup Appliance

Evaluating Unitrends Recovery Series Backup Appliance and Competitors

Yes - The Recovery Series appliance replaced Symantec Backup Exec 2010. As a nonprofit we got a killer deal on Backup Exec; all options and features for $125.00. When it came time to replace the product, our revenue exceeded the limit of the program from which we received the discounted software. We needed an enterprise class solution that had cloud replication capabilities, supported the XenServer hypervisor, and fit within our price range. Unitrends fit all the requirements.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Third-party Reviews
The features included in the Recovery Series was the single most important factor in my decision to purchase. It had cloud storage capability, WAN optimized replication, support for granular recovery with Exchange Server, and deduplication. Additionally, the Recovery Series would integrate with the Unitrends Enterprise Backup virtual appliance for protecting our XenServer environment. These were all the features we wanted and it delivered.
As with implementing any new product into an existing environment, there were some hiccups along the way. There was a communication error between myself and the Unitrends sales person and probably confusion on their part regarding the Recovery Series' ability to natively protect a XenServer environment; it can't. This was discovered after purchasing the product with 5 years of support. Our Unitrends sales rep made it right by comping us with the Enterprise Backup virtual appliance to protect XenServer and its VMs. It wasn't ideal as we now have two products to manage but they can be controlled through the one interface on the Recovery Series.