Backup Question

[green240]

Can anyone recommend a good backup software, that does image and file backups. I think Acronis and Shadow Protect have these options, I just wanted to see if someone else uses other software.

Thanks in advance.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

StorageCraft rocks!

 

[knc]

StorageCraft rocks!

Simple as that!

Saved client from cryptolocker..

 

[green240]

Storagecraft is a bit pricey, most of my clients are small businesses with one server and 5-6 workstations. In those cases will you guys recommend just using the Windows Server Integrated backup solution?

 

[Magic Miguel]

If you join the Storage Craft partner program they do MSP pricing but they do have a min. of $100 worth or a certain amount of licenses. But you pay per month based upon each license and then you pass that on to your client. So they don't eat the huge up front $700-$1000 price. At least you get recurring revenue too.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Storagecraft is a bit pricey, most of my clients are small businesses with one server and 5-6 workstations. In those cases will you guys recommend just using the Windows Server Integrated backup solution?

This is where educating the client becomes an important part of your job. The old analogy "you get what you pay for" is true with sooooo many things...and backup is one of them.

You want backup software that sends/notifies via daily logs.
You want backup software that's very easy to restore from
You want backup software that's easy to do disaster recovery from
You might want backup software that works well with more complicated files...database files 'n stuff like that. If you've ever dealt with walking into a "recovery" scenario where the client had cheap backup ...and you need to recover something more complicated than a Word file...you'll know what I mean. Ever see a client literally cry when she realizes she's lost over a years worth of data? I have. Thought I was gonna have to pick up up off the floor and call an ambulance and take her to a padded room.

You want to have any/all of your clients use backup software that is easy peasy for you to restore from. Quickly. Even remotely. And you can take that call and not break out in a sweat, because you have confidence in it.

Moral of my story...don't let cheap clients drive you to install/support sub-par backup solutions...nobody wins here...them, or you.

 

[green240]

Understood, thank you sir.

 

[acscva]

I have been selling Storagecraft ShadowProtect for over 13 years and have looked at many others and still come back to them. Their server product is pricey but their desktop product is reasonable.

For servers I also do BackupAssist which is $279....but not the same as ShadowProtect.

The other thing is that I can monitor the backups with GFI Max RMM.

 

[knc]

The SBS version is VERY reasonably priced, the Standard edition is pricey.

 

[putz]

Symantec System Recovery and StorageCraft Shadowprotect are the 2 products we use the most. We try to push Storagecraft as much as possible because the licensing model of the core software fits our business model more and they offer cloud backup features. IMO both do a good job at creating image based backups of a system.

ShadowProtect is a lot more detail oriented as far as how you can configure your backups, retention, and replication which is nice. However after working with their product for a couple years now I notice they like to charge you for all the little extras of their software, for example Exchange Granular recovery is a min year subscription or if you want to replicate your backups to another managed PC i believe a license is required for that as well. Not a huge deal just more to consider and manage as far as costs go.

Symantec System Recovery has more basic options. Allows you to create backup image sets for X period of time and retain X amount of backup sets, has built in offsite-copy that supports USB drives or ftp locations, and i believe supports exchange granular recovery out of the box. One thing I wish Symantec would incorporate, like shadowprotect would be the continuous incremental backup option and change their backup format to something like shadowprotect that is essential VHD format or compatible format so you would not need to run a conversion process to create a VM of your backup. Supports file-based backup as well.

We do use a 3rd product from time to time called Intronis. Is mainly just for machines that need cloud based backups. However their pricing per GB seems to be more expensive than competitors but their software offers a bit more than other cloud backup solutions.

 

[PBComputer]

I either use Storagecraft or Macrium Reflect both a great products and we have never had an issue.

 

[CompConfig]

I either use Storagecraft or Macrium Reflect both a great products and we have never had an issue.

Those are the two we use and are partners with storage craft too

 

[LifelineIT]

I use crashplan and just charge for my time. Most small offices can get by with the $120 a year option, which I believe is up to 5 machines unlimited. It also gives them remote access to files and does revisioning and such. It also includes a LAN or local backup option which I dump to an attached external drive. Then I use AOMEI, which is free, to do weekly images, which are included in both backups, three deep each because why not.

When your niche is NPO agencies, you have to do what you can to save money.

I also then sell my RMM of choice which is currently CentraStage on a yearly service plan. That lets me remote in whenever and also lets me automate things like disk error detection and such.

Edit: if your small office has more than 5 machines but not enough to warrant the next price jump, you just use the crashplan agent to dump to a lan share on one of the machines that backs up to cloud, and then include that folder in that machines cloud backup.

I have a few clients on pure S3 backup as well. Much less user friendly, but stupid cheap and reliable.

With Dropbox pro now giving a terabyte for $100 a year, and drive offering something similar with a base of 25 gigs, you can use any of half a dozen local apps to back up there too, including crashplan without a subscription.