Quorum OnQ Reviews

Backups, file recovery, DR capability, and instant VM recovery are our primary needs and the OnQ system does those expertly.

Our infrastructure is a combination of hosted and on-prem. Co-locating our HA appliance in the data center near our SAN environment provides a knockout combination of speed and security, and the environmental fears are not present. This bunker approach protects our primary HQ data and also backs up remote servers across our WAN. We cover all our bases by protecting every server and VM in our environment, and even our specialty machines. The HA/DR appliances also provide us with a rock-solid implementation of DR.

We've used the Quorum OnQ appliances, HA and DR, for the past six years. It is a rock-solid platform that has served us well. We recently retired our aging OnQ appliances and upgraded to the new generation of OnQ servers. The change has been impressive. The new hardware is substantially faster and we are able to apply the OnQ solution to additional business segments in our company as the backup times have decreased between five and tenfold.  We are now retiring other backup solutions as we push out protection via OnQ to other business units.

The change in the way that Quorum processes data has made a tremendous improvement in backup and replication times. While the familiar interface remains, the underpinnings have been finely tuned and the speed is incredible. My large Exchange Server went from 5- to 6-hour backups down to 22 minutes. 

The instant file recovery is a great time saver, enabling us to pull up a version of a file instantly and restore. Typical restore times are about two minutes, start to finish.

The guarantee that my data is available and that my servers are recoverable is the best feature. The OnQ technology tests each VM after backups and I always have a dashboard view of the accuracy of my backups and the viability of my DR solution. Replication between units is flawless and I never have to worry about where my data is sitting if a disaster occurs.

I would like to see iSCSI support added so that NAS storage servers could be protected. We heavily utilize NAS storage and the risk there is minimal backup options. Currently, we are backing up NAS to NAS which is costly and slow. Being able to integrate NAS server backup would be the last item on my Quorum bucket list. 

I am excited to see enhanced support for Linux, which gives me an opportunity to let the Quorum start protecting my enterprise storage in our data centers. I would like to see this further developed as well.

I have been using this solution, the new version of Quorum OnQ, for 30 days. I used a previous version of the solution for about six years.

Quorum support is second to none. Their onboarding process for bringing you over to OnQ, or for upgrading units, is fantastic. Support is usually minutes away if needed, with a friendly voice on the first call to Quorum. All the support is based on the West Coast and they have a fantastic group of techs. Again, this adds to the value of your investment.

I've used a number of backup solutions over the years. Backup Exec, Windows Backup, cloud backup, various media types, and previously, the early generation of Quorum OnQ. The switch to the OnQ system was a huge paradigm shift in how I run my department.

Moving, again, to the latest revision of OnQ appliances and software has resulted in a substantial improvement in speed. Quite frankly, once you've used the Quorum OnQ system, you could not consider any alternative. I am frequently asked to consider Veeam but there is simply no consideration of Veeam or others on my part. They just do not compare when you run the numbers on RTO and RPO, and compare the simplicity.

The OnQ appliance system offers tremendous time savings for your IT department. Your ROI should consider the time savings for IT team members.

We did not consider other options on this upgrade. We were so satisfied with the previous OnQ system that there was no suitable replacement to consider.

Don't underestimate your capabilities with Quorum OnQ. It will far outperform the max recommended capabilities that Quorum suggests.

The onsite version keeps our backups for all of our NOC servers, which is everything operational. We get backups every four hours or so, and should something happen — someone deletes something or a server's hardware goes out — we're able to restore that locally, very quickly. The Quorum will run a virtual machine, the recovery node of the server, from the latest backup, within minutes of having an issue.

Our deployment of the solution is both on-prem and cloud. We're only sending a few specific servers to the Quorum cloud, which hosted by them. We have our onsite device as well which backs everything up.

We had a few instances where someone who had access to some accounting shares got infected and no one could access those files. We were able to lock down the infection on that person's computer and, within an hour of it being detected, restore files to four hours prior, when there was no infection. So we were only set back on a few files by a few hours instead of a day or two.

We've also had hardware failures on physical servers. We were able to restore the recovery node and bring the server back up, with the users unaware that there was ever a problem, other than losing connection briefly while the recovery node came online. There may have only been a few hours lost instead of a day, where we had to fix the physical server and then bring it online.

With the restore function on the Quorum, we're able to go down to the individual file level for each backup, and we have 40 or 60 backups available. We are able to restore the files to exactly where they were, through Quorum's interface. It's very easy to go through if you've ever used a file system as a system administrator. It is very intuitive to navigate and recover the files to exactly where they were when they were backed up.

The biggest feature is being able to do a file recovery to the original server. That is extremely useful and has saved us a few times when we've had ransomware. In some of those cases, people's computers were locked down by viruses which spread to things they had access to, including server shares. But we were easily able to just restore to four hours prior, instead of a day or two or more ago. That has been extremely useful.

And being able to bring a server up from the same backup from a few hours ago, if the server were to crash or have issues, is valuable.

When it comes to recovering what we need from a backup, it's very easy to use. The interface is very straightforward in getting to your goal. It has made file recovery very easy, very simple, and quick.

Also, the automated testing functionality seems accurate. If it comes back and says there's a problem, I can always contact support and usually it's just that there is a little hiccup. They run a few commands and resolve any automatic report issues. In our case, we have some older servers which don't necessarily report correctly even though their recovery nodes will power on.

We've been using Quorum for at least six years. The company had it before I started working here.

Quorum is very stable. We've had a few hiccups over the years, but they weren't anything that Quorum didn't quickly support us on, or replace any hard drives that may have been awry.

It seems to scale very easily, as long as you have the hard drive space.

We currently have 12 servers that are being backed up every four hours. That includes SQL servers, an Exchange Server, database servers, and domain controllers.

Quorum support is very good. They have very knowledgeable technicians who are more than happy to guide you through any process that you're trying to accomplish. The tech support agents are very efficient. Eighty percent of the time that I contact Quorum, my issue is resolved within 15 to 20 minutes.

However, there seems to be a lack of technicians. Sometimes they are very busy and I don't hear back for a day or two. The technicians they have are great. They are fantastic, but it seems difficult, at times, to get in contact with anyone.

We have had them actually put us at the front of the line when it has been a critical emergency.

It was very easy to integrate and configure and set up. It's straightforward. Having had the process explained to me the first time, I have been able to manage the system on my own ever since.

The deployment took a day.

The implementation plan was to get the device plugged in and turned on. The Quorum technician would then connect and help with any final configuration. We had already had a few configuration talks beforehand regarding what was required with the device we bought. Then we just needed to start the backups on each of our servers.

The solution is definitely an extra cost, but it's an extra cost that's worth it because of what it offers. It's not a necessary expense, as I could do similar things with a hard drive that was getting backed up to every night, but having Quorum, I can now recover every few hours instead of every few day and I can get immediate recovery on servers that have critical failures. It has proven its worth and its cost, but it is an extra cost that isn't strictly required.

The ease of recovering from data loss is huge, as well as the peace of mind, knowing that if something does happen, I can have a replacement running in a matter of minutes.

The total for our current solution's licensing is about $14,000 for 12 servers for three years. We bought hardware from Quorum which was part of the total. We paid upfront to get a discount.

We had just started using it when I was hired on, and I was just a helpdesk technician at the time. I was taught how to use it, but wasn't heavily involved in the process until a few years in. Earlier this year we did look at at least one other viable solution. After doing some cost analysis of both the other solution and Quorum, Quorum came out much cheaper, and we got way more for the money we were spending.

My advice would be to make sure you leave your protected node configuration with plenty of extra hard drive space.

Everything has functioned the way we've needed it to. They're in a transition phase now with a new interface and this new architecture, so I'm withholding judgment for the most part on that, as they are still figuring things out.

We have three users, whose roles are server administration and our CIO, but it's mostly me as server administrator. The solution requires one person for deployment and maintenance of the solution.

The primary use case for us is a high-availability. The ease of use is a part of that as well. The ability to spin up a backed-up VM or to put it on the production network, literally in a matter of minutes, if a VM goes down, is critical for us.

If a VM goes down for whatever reason — having that assurance that we've got a reliable backed up VM on a separate platform that we can spin up on a different piece of hardware and appliance in real-time, and get the resource back up and running again quickly, is the best use case for us.

One of the benefits of the onQ platform is that it does what it does, and it does it well. It's very easy to keep up and running. In terms of day-to-day management, once you have everything in place, it does its job and takes the snapshots for you and gives you the reporting back on them. From a solution standpoint, it works very well.

Being able to spin up another VM on the appliance, in production mode, within a matter of a couple of minutes, has been immensely helpful. Having the ability to reduce recovery time, for critical resources, from multiple hours to a matter of minutes, is huge.

It's easy to manage. We're a smaller team.  It's easy to implement, easy to spin up, easily configurable, to drop-in appliances and network. There wasn't a lot of time needed to spin it up. 

From a day-to-day management perspective, it's very easy to use as well.

And I get reporting on the latest backup every day, whether or not it was successful, and whether or not the test of the VM was successful. It comes to me by email and gives me the status of each of the VMs: When it was last backed up, whether or not the backup was successful, and whether or not the test was successful. 

Upgrading the software on the appliance feels to me like it's going to be a little bit more work than I originally anticipated.

The process for moving the VM off of the Quorum appliance and back into the production network again requires quite a number of steps. I don't know if there can be any improvement made on that, but in looking at it, I found it was pretty lengthy. There were quite a number of steps there so I requested that one of the Quorum engineers perform the process, which they were happy to do. That part was great. They were able to get that VM moved over from the appliance to my production network again and everything was fine.

We've been using onQ since 2015. 

The stability has been great. The appliance has been rock-solid. I've had no issues with the hardware. We've had the same appliance for the last four years now and it has been running great. It requires very little management time, if any. It just runs and works.

The scalability is  good, from what I remember. We haven't scaled up a ton. The capacity planning that was done originally, with the estimated growth that we put in for headroom, for expansion and growth, was accurate. We've been able to grow into the solution without making any changes or any adjustments. Scalability was planned out at the beginning. I've been in great shape there.

One of the things that I like about Quorum is the level of support. 

Overall, their support folks are great. They have proactively reached out to me when they've noticed issues with the backup not taking for a few days, or outside of a threshold, or if they've seen any issue where a VM has not been successful in testing over the last couple of days. They'll proactively reach out to me.

I've had cases where I actually shut down a VM from production because I didn't need it anymore but forgot about the Quorum appliance trying to take snapshots of it. It kept failing and I just ignored it on the report because I knew about it. But the Quorum support folks didn't know that that's what happened. They were a little concerned that the device hadn't backed up in X amount of days. They actually reached out to me and said, "Hey, we saw that your VM X-Y-Z hasn't been backed up. What's going on with that? Do you need help?" That was impressive. It feels like they've got my back as well. It's not just me who has visibility or eyes on the backups. I'm getting a little assistance from their NOC or support team which, in some cases, keeps track of the statuses of those backups too.

We had a solution, but it was a very manual, labor-intensive, not-full-VM appliance. 

For us, partnering with an organization like Quorum, a company that basically hands it to you in a box and it's all ready to go and implement quickly and easily, without a lot of management resource on my end to keep the thing running — it just does what it's supposed to do — is the best approach at this point.

The initial setup was relatively straight forward. That was one of the selling points of Quorum with the appliance device. I did some due diligence and figured out sizing capacity, so they could size the appliance correctly. They had me run some tools for capacity-planning in my environment. They took all that information and they came up with the right size solution for the appliance that I needed.

To provision the appliance, they had me drop it into my network and spin it up, which is very easy to do. Once they had connectivity to it we finished the configuration on it. They then gave me the ability to manage the appliance and start getting backups from my VM environment onto it. 

So the implementation rollout was a very easy, handheld process. They did a lot of handholding and it was very white-glove. It was very easy, which was great.

I worked with one or two of their engineers.

We haven't really fully measured ROI.  I definitely believe there has been ROI.

The solution can be on the pricier side depending on options selected but it's one of those situations where if time is valuable and resources are limited, it might be worth it.  Each use case is unique.

We evaluated a couple of other players, including Datto. Ease of use was one of the differences between Quorum and Datto. I think there were some problems with Datto, as I remember. I did a lot of research on forums and sites, like ITCentralStation.com, from an end-user perspective in different environments. That gave me an idea as to what the solution was like after it was implemented, installed, and up and running. I really relied on what the community was saying about the different solutions. Each one has its pros and cons.

For our organization, after reading all the reviews and commentary, and taking into consideration points that mattered to us, it really came down to Quorum, from many different angles, being the front-runner.

Look at all the partners out there and pick the one that you feel is the best fit for you, based on your use case. Everyone is a little bit different and has different needs in terms of what's critical to them and what's not important.

I give Quorum a solid nine out of 10. Over a number of years it has been a rock-solid solution. It has worked for us. It's easy to manage. It doesn't take a lot of my time. It does what it needs to do. When I have had to use it and rely upon it, it has been there.

We use it as a backup solution. We are using it as a CR agent, and data reputation. What we have in the production we must have another box at theDR center too that is replicating. 

The solution is very cost-effective. 

The subscription must be affordable..

I have been working with Quorum OnQ for three years.

The solution is very stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

Previously, I used Veeam and then moved to Quorum because Veeam is only a backup solution but with Quorum I get to backup the whole virtual servers with OS. 

The initial setup is a bit complex. It gets easier once you familiarize yourself with it.

Besides the pricing, Quorum is overall a good solution. I would recommend it. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten. 

The most useful feature is the integration and ease of backup and testing.

Quorum OnQ is limited and does not support all the Linux flavours, and it should be integrated. It currently only supports Red Hat-based systems. For example, Ubuntu is not supported. In addition, the price is high and could be more competitive.

We have been using this solution for almost three years.

It is a stable solution.

I am unsure about the scalability because we currently do not need to scale. We use the entry-level system, but we have challenges because a higher system and multiple machines for centralization are required if we want new hardware.

We haven't faced many issues with technical support. But, if we want to use technical support, we need an internet connection, and remote access can be provided. So it's required that the partner engineers be trained on the product, and full access is required to troubleshoot. It also requires local partner engineers. This is an issue for customers with security restrictions where internet access is impossible for the device. I rate the technical support a seven out of ten.

Neutral

The initial setup is okay and straightforward, but there are some restrictions because we don't have in-depth access to configuring or troubleshooting. As a partner, we need full access to the system. In addition, we got support from the OnQ team for the initial setup.

I rate the initial setup an eight out of ten. When we have another box implementation, we'll have a more accurate picture of how easy or complex the setup is.

Quorum OnQ works as a backup system for us. It is used for a limited number of systems, and all other systems are on cloud.

The solution has a yearly subscription, or it's a perpetual license. I rate the price a six out of ten because it is pretty high, especially regarding hardware costs.

We evaluated other options and currently use Veeam and other backup data protection products.

I rate this solution a seven out of ten. Regarding advice, the marketing of this solution should be better. Customers don't know much about the product, so the OnQ Quorum team should focus on marketing.

I use Quorum OnQ to backup all of the production servers on my network. These include all file, AD, email, and financial servers. We are using OnQ to back up full images of servers as well as simple file backups. This is our primary disaster recovery solution.

When I started at my current organization they had a scattered approach to backup. Some servers backed up locally, some to various cloud services, others not at all. Management of all those solutions was a disaster. OnQ allowed me to back everything up consistently and for less money. I get a daily digest and I know that my systems are protected.

I have used the BMR (Bare Metal Restore) in several emergencies and it has absolutely saved my bacon. I love being able to bring up a machine as a VM too. I've used that to test system upgrades and system deployments without having to worry about breaking anything in production. It is easy to wipe and repeat those tests as you need to.

I don't love the scheduler, as I think that interface could use an overhaul. I have always managed to get it to work the way I wanted it to, but it could be nicer and more user-friendly. Having to pick that a job repeats every 23:59 is a bit ridiculous in this day and age.

I have used this solution for thirteen years at two different companies.

This solution is rock solid and something I rely on every day.

For a small business, this solution has everything I need.

I have used support dozens of times in the past thirteen years and in all cases they were helpful, professional, and knowledgeable.  

I have used Backup Exec with DLT and LTO type tapes. Tape backup is just a thing of the past and Backup Exec just didn't have good offsite options at that time.

 I have used EVault and similar remote solutions, but the bandwidth was always an issue. They didn't perform good delta backups and didn't offer BMR at all.

The initial setup is very simple. They walk you right through it.

The vendor team set up and shipped the server to me, preconfigured. I then worked with an implementation specialist to get everything working on my network. I couldn't have asked for an easier process or better people to work with.

On multiple occasions, I have had to run a server in recovery mode because the physical server failed (motherboard failure, etc.). Our business was able to run normally during those times and when new hardware was in I was able to do a BMR without interrupting business.  That is fifty coworkers who were not idled because of failed hardware. That is pretty huge.

This is the best money I spend on my budget. We have never questioned whether it is worth it because it so obviously is a great value.

At this point, I haven't looked at other solutions in many years. I moved to OnQ thirteen years ago at my previous company and loved it. When I started at my new company and saw the mess their backup was in, I immediately switched to OnQ.

Setup was a breeze, and the support and training is excellent. If you are a knowledgeable user, then they will work with you at your level, but if you just need them to do it for you then they will do that too.

I use Quorum OnQ for backup and disaster recovery.

The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use.

it's too early to say what needs improvements at this stage.

The cost could be reduced.

I have experience with Quorum OnQ, and I use it as well.

I have been using Quorum OnQ for a month and a half.

I am working with the latest version.

Quorum OnQ appears to be stable but it's too early to say. So far everything is going very smoothly.

Quorum OnQ is scalable. That was something that was taken into consideration.

It's just a tool that runs in the background with no users until a problem occurs. It's a security tool, a backup system tool, so users don't deal with it until a problem arises.

So far, technical support has been very good.

The initial setup is straightforward.

I am not sure how much it costs, but I know it's expensive.

It's an all-in-one solution, and the essential point here is that you don't have multiple solutions that you have to integrate.

What I like about it is that it is a turnkey solution that is very user-friendly, and easy to operate.

Consider the costs and effort involved in having numerous solutions and integrating them. Quorum, on the other hand, is a straightforward integrated solution that caught my attention.

It's far too early for me, but everything so far has been really positive.

I would rate Quorum OnQ an eight out of ten.

Speaker 3:

Let's go with an 8  for the moment, but I should rate it a 10, but I haven't tested it yet to the fullest. That is something that is still in progress.

We are a reseller and Quorum OnQ is one of the products that we sell to our clients.

As a reseller, we use our Quorum OnQ box for demonstration purposes, and for PoC purposes. We do not yet have any sales in this region.

The primary use case is quick HA and DR.

The most useful feature is the one-click recovery. It instantly boots up the protected VM.

This product is easy to use.

The user interface needs to be improved. It is good, albeit very simple and the look needs to be improved when compared to other products on the market.

I would prefer if there were an easier way to restore databases or applications. It would be good, for example, if the Quorum agent could do things like restore databases at the table level.

We have been selling Quorum OnQ for approximately one year.

This solution is very stable. We have tested it for approximately one year, so we have only had a problem once or twice.

Scalability is something that we haven't tested. We have not tried adding another box but from what I have read so far, I think that the scalability is good.

We have not tried to contact technical support because we don't have any sales in the region. At this point, we don't know anything about them.

As resellers, we are also selling NetBackup and Commvault. One of the complaints from our customers is that the Quorum is expensive, and they question why it is on par with these other products.

The initial setup is quite straightforward.

When we quote the price of Quorum to customers, they find it expensive.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.