Unitrends backs you up!
Updated February 25, 2021
Unitrends backs you up!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Unitrends Data Center Backup and Recovery
We have the 833 appliance and we use it to backup our existing 10+ physical servers and 100+ VMware VMs. We are backing up everything from our File server, Exchange, SQL to SharePoint and local apps servers. We also backup select items to the Unitrends cloud for archiving beyond 2 weeks. Before Unitrends, we were using another backup suite on an old server and rotating NAS devices home to get them offisite on a biweekly basis. We were running out of space and patience. Unitrends has been a great addition to our infrastructure! It was easy to implement and has been rock solid for 3 years.
- Restores are a dream. Select the day, select the content and restore. Couldn't be easier.
- Has 4 NIC ports that you can aggregate for more throughput.
- The UI is very simple to work with. They updated it recently and it is even simpler. You don't have to fumble through a menu. Everything is in front of you and laid out logically.
- If you want to recover something from exchange, that is a separate piece of software. Wish that was integrated.
- There are four extra HD slots on our appliance that you cannot expand to. Would be great if they allowed the appliance to be filled and re-striped.
- A little annoyance is that the appliance doesn't have a faceplate. That could just be my issue though.
- Unitrends has allowed us to set backups and not worry. We get a report every morning letting us know what backed up and what didn't and why.
- The combination of on-prem and cloud allows us to have redundacy and DR.
- It would be great to have 10GB NICs as that is where we are taking the rest of our servers and switches.
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?
Yes
Did implementation of Unitrends go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Unitrends again?
Yes
Unitrends was similar to the competitors in what it provided but what sold us was the price, the availability of support and their replacement model. Demoing the UI really showed us how easy the platform was and how quickly we could get up and running. In three years, we have had to replace two HDs and they came next day and support got them up and running inside an hour, both times, while the appliance continued to work!
Unitrends Feature Ratings
Using Unitrends Data Center Backup and Recovery
4 - All 3 are IT. We have a IT Manager that runs reports, a Sr. Systems Administrator that handles all of the maintenance and infrastructure changes and a couple of Jr. Systems Administrators that can do spot restores and backups if needed. It is a very easy system for multiple people to engage in without stepping on toes.
2 - The IT Manager and Sr. SysAdmin are the only two that do daily support.
- Backing up our Physical Servers
- Backing up our Virtual Servers
- Restoring of data on a case by case basis
- We have been able to aggregate the four NICs on the appliance t get more throughput for backups.
- We have since incorporated a local NAS for onsite archiving through this Unitrends box and connecting to their Forever Cloud for further archiving as well.
- We are only lightly using it for our Virtual environment now. We need to discover more of that
Evaluating Unitrends Data Center Backup and Recovery and Competitors
Yes - We were using a very old version of Symantec Backup Express. It was severely out of date, out of support and running on a physical box with the same flaws. We were also connecting eSATA hard drives (footballs) to "archive" the backups offsite. It was a messy, old system so we looked to replace it.
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
Product usability was paramount. We needed to be able to get in and around the system easily. Unitrends was/is super intuitive and training was quick. Obviously price was next. We wanted something that worked well at a great value.
We wouldn't change a thing. It was a smooth process and Unitrends quickly came out on top
Unitrends Data Center Backup and Recovery Implementation
- Implemented in-house
Change management was minimal
- no issues
Unitrends Data Center Backup and Recovery Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
Yes
We want to make sure that we can contact support at any time as our data is valuable just like anyone else
I had a disk failure on the system and they had a replacement out next day and were dialed into the system and adding the replacement that same day. Zero downtime. Great support!!
Using Unitrends Data Center Backup and Recovery
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Setting up backups
- Restoring from backups
- Adding machines to backup
- recovery email if backing up exchange is a bit cumbersome as you need to use a third party utility. that may have since changed as they were working on incorporating that functionality into their portal