Unitrends Reviews, Competitors and Pricing

it_user752400

Senior Network Administrator at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Oct 17, 2017

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We went from tape backups to hard disk backups. The restores have been a lot quicker.

What is most valuable?

Loving the new SLA Policy feature. Recovery is very quick.

How has it helped my organization?

We went from tape backups to hard disk backups using Unitrends. The restores have been a lot quicker.

What needs improvement?

Stabilizing SQL database backups: They are way too sensitive and I am having to constantly fix SQL level backups.

For how long have I used the solution?

Three years.

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What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

None. Easy deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No.

How are customer service and support?

Customer Service:

Excellent.

Technical Support:

Excellent.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Symantec NetBackup.

How was the initial setup?

It was actually very straightfoward

What about the implementation team?

It was in-house with the assistance of Unitrends tech support.

What was our ROI?

I've already received my ROI through many man hours being saved going from tape to hard disk.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Consider the Enterprise Plus license, it adds a few extra analytics and reporting that will provide you with a little more insight into your RPO and RTOs.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Dell solution, ExaGrid, and a little bit of Veeam.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user215967

Network Engineer at a wellness & fitness company with 501-1,000 employees

Sep 24, 2017

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Technical support is inadequate, but it has removed the need to have a copy for backup replication purposes

Pros and Cons

"The ability to backup both physical and virtual machines, along with having an appliance store the backups locally instead of on a file server, NAS, or SAN."

"Techs don't see to be well-versed in troubleshooting issues that arise and tickets stay opened for weeks for resolution."

How has it helped my organization?

It has removed the need to have a copy for backup replication purposes, as we replicate our backups to the cloud.

What is most valuable?

The ability to backup both physical and virtual machines, along with having an appliance store the backups locally instead of on a file server, NAS, or SAN.

What needs improvement?

Technical support is quite inadequate. Techs don't see to be well-versed in troubleshooting issues that arise and tickets stay opened for weeks for resolution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Restoration has been unstable when needed. Some backups don't restore properly or take an excessive amount of time to complete.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have not needed to scale, so this is not applicable.

How is customer service and technical support?

I give them a one out of 10.

How was the initial setup?

It was supposed to straightforward, but ended up being complex due to unforeseen issues by Unitrends support.

What other advice do I have?

Carefully observe reviews on this solution by actual end users before considering this as a backup strategy.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Buyer's Guide

Unitrends

December 2024

Free Report: Unitrends Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Unitrends. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.

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it_user98646

Virtualization Consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

May 7, 2015

Incremental backups are quicker than differential backups and can thus be done more frequently but the Windows agent must be version 7.5 or higher.

A couple of weeks ago Unitrends announced their latest release of Unitrends Enterprise Backup, namely version 7.5. The last couple of days I’ve been able to try this new version and I must say I’m pretty impressed by all new features and the ease of use of this new version. First let’s start with the feature list and dive in to some of these further:

CloudHook for archiving to your cloud storage provider.
Navigation grouping for easy management of clients and virtual machines.
Support for Exchange incremental backups.
Support for multiple SQL restores.
New Policies report and Storage Footprint report.
System performance enhancements, including faster backups, faster replication, and faster VMware inventory scan.

CloudHook

With Unitrends CloudHook you have the possibility to archive your backups in the cloud. In earlier days we had to put our long-term backups on tape, because having the data that was been backuped in the same datacenter was no option. Getting it on tape and then moving it to another location ensured us of data salvation in case of a major event. With cloud storage becoming more and more available, companies are looking for this option to archive their backups. With Unitrends CloudHook you have the possibility to archive your backups into the cloud in a very efficient way. At the time of writing there are 3 cloud storage solutions supported by UEB 7.5 namely:

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)
Google Cloud Storage
Rackspace Cloud Files

Navigation Grouping

With Navigation grouping UEB 7.5 making backups of multiple VM’s or physical servers in an organized manner is easy. Group servers together to make navigation, monitoring, backup, restore, archiving and reporting much easier. The following list of items can be grouped together:

Physical Clients like Windows and Linux Servers
VMware VM’s
vApps
VMware templates
Resource pools
HyperV VM’s

Removing these groups is just as easy as creating them, and it will return the interface to the original state.

xchange incremental backup support

UEB 7.5 provides the possibility to make incremental backups of your Exchange Database. This has a couple of benefits:

Incremental backups are quicker than differential backups and can thus be done more frequently. This benefit lays in the fact that a differential backup includes all changes since the full backup (it does not change the Archive flag) while incremental backups only backup the changes since the last incremental (it changes the archive flag)
Another benefit of incremental backups is the fact that log after completing a successful incremental, unneeded transaction log files are automatically truncated, freeing space on the Exchange server.

To use the Unitrends Exchange incremental backups the following requirements must be met:

The Unitrends appliance must be running version 7.5 at least.
The Windows agent must be version 7.5 or higher.
Differential and incremental backups cannot be in the same schedule.
A full backup must be in the schedule. The incremental forever strategy is not supported.

Multiple SQL restores support

Now you can restore multiple SQL databases with a single click. You can also create custom folders of protected servers and virtual machines – significantly reducing the clicks needed to manage protected assets. The only limitations on this is the Windows limitation which is 6 simultaneous restores can run at the same time

To use this feature you must meet the following requirements:

The Unitrends appliance must be running version 7.5 at least.
The Windows agent must be version 7.5 or higher.
Databases must be restored to the original SQL instance and name.

New reporting capabilities

With the UEB 7.5 release a couple of new reports are available, which will help you to produce better and more efficient reports on your UEB environment:

Policies report. This report contains information about the general data protection policies applied to your systems, including systems protected, retention settings, schedules, data included or excluded from backup, and backup type. This report, along with the Schedule History report, may be used to assist in satisfying regulatory compliance audits
Storage Footprint report. This report needs to run on replication targets to determine the amount of physical storage consumed by each replicating source system

System performance enhancements

UEB 7.5 features the following performance enhancements:

As UEB 7.5 now uses hardware assisted encryption leveraging the AES instruction set on the processor as well enhanced space reclamation algorithms provides for much faster backups.
Pipelining optimizations, hardware assisted encryption and improvements made to the algorithms that manage the replication queue provide a significant increase in faster replication.
In release 7.5 UEB provides a much faster VMware inventory scan for all environments.
With all the new features and improvements UEB 7.5 provides a smaller backup window and increased retention.

Arjan’s view

With all these new features and (performance) improvements as well as the fusion between two great companies (Unitrends and PHD Virtual), and their products, UEB 7.5 is a feature rich product which I can easily promote to all my customers. With the Unitrends team growing larger and larger and international the support for the Unitrends products is great. With backup and recovery on a modern way but with the possibility to leverage old and new infrastructures and features the UEB 7.5 is an awesome release which shows that Unitrends is a company to keep in mind.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Md Tj

Solution Consultant at Anamtech

Jun 22, 2022

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Complex, not so easy to use, and needs to add instant recovery

Pros and Cons

"When we talk about a backup point of view, from a backup perspective, it's a good one."

"Comparing the features and the working pattern, definitely they have to come down on pricing if they want to compete in the market."

What is most valuable?

It's a good solution. When we talk about a backup point of view, from a backup perspective, it's a good one.

One good thing with them is the pricing.

What needs improvement?

They are trying to follow Quorum for instant recovery and all those things, however, they have that feature only for Windows environments and not for Linux. The console is pretty complex.

Comparing the features and the working pattern, definitely they have to come down on pricing if they want to compete in the market.

It's complex. It's not so easy to use. It's not an easy configuration or a single pane configuration. There are a lot of steps involved to configure something.

They need instant recovery.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We've never had any tests in a production scenario when it comes to stability. I can't speak to if it is stable or not.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is complex and the configuration process is not easy.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Their pricing is okay, however, they need to bring it down a bit to be more competitive.

What other advice do I have?

We have not seen much acceptance, especially in this region for Unitrends, however, still, we are trying to do it.

I'd rate this solution four out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:

it_user760353

IT Director at a government

Oct 24, 2017

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Easily mastered interface and application for backup/recovery, which is versatile, fast, and reliable

What is most valuable?

Easily mastered interface and application for backup/recovery.
Versatile, works well in VM and physical environments.
Nice VM or file-level recovery, without spinning anything up to accommodate.

How has it helped my organization?

Fast and reliable. Able to integrate two sites and backup environments over an extended campus WAN.

What needs improvement?

Implement the changes that are being requested through the GUI.

For how long have I used the solution?

Seven years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Mostly networking, not the appliance or implementation specialists fault.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Having issues backing up systems with tons of small files.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Yes, expansion is only possible by buying a new appliance.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Good.

Technical Support:

Very good technical support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Yes, switched companies and the requirements changed drastically.

How was the initial setup?

Very straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

Mostly in-house with some vendor assistance.

What was our ROI?

Good.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

No advice. The pricing is fairly competitive.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes, Veeam and others.

What other advice do I have?

No, we are happy with second gen of the appliance that we have purchased.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user773313

Network Administrator at a transportation company with 11-50 employees

Nov 16, 2017

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It makes it easier to track and set up new backups due to its coverage of both physical and virtual environments

Pros and Cons

"The ability to back up both physical and virtual appliances under one roof."

"Network-based storage stability could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution to back up both physical and virtual environments in and out of the office.

How has it helped my organization?

Easier to track and set up new backups due to its coverage of both physical and virtual environments (or we would have needed two separate solutions).

What is most valuable?

The ability to back up both physical and virtual appliances under one roof.
Its cloud backup capability.

What needs improvement?

Network-based storage stability could be improved.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I had some issues early on with network-based storage dropping connections, therefore corrupting the backups.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

A 10 out 10. Whenever I have had issues, the customer service staff has been more than helpful in resolve them.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Veeam. Cost of licensing was getting expensive due to our other site expanding.

How was the initial setup?

Fairly easy, once I got my head around the way they set retention policies.

What about the implementation team?

In-house.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Several options are available. Speak to their sales staff to ensure you have the right solution for your needs.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

No.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user752340

System Administrator at a energy/utilities company with 11-50 employees

Oct 17, 2017

Allows us to add new assets to our existing backup strategy with minimal errors

Unitrends allows us to easily add new assets to our existing backup strategy with no headaches. I am used to seeing quite a bit of errors when using different backup strategies and this has been minimized. When I have had to reach out to Unitrends support, they are quick to get back to me and try their best to help come up with a solution. I've had good luck with the product so far and wouldn't hesitate to implement it again.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user760353IT Director at a government

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Nov 6, 2017

Good review, and accurate. Unitrends support is great.

reviewer1534704

Systems Administrator at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Apr 2, 2021

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Decent platform to go with; don't have any issues with it

Pros and Cons

"When I have had to use tech support, they've been very good."

"Probably the biggest issue I've had is actually paying for the unit, and part of that problem is that they use a third party for the billing."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case for Unitrends is backup.

What needs improvement?

Probably the biggest issue I've had is actually paying for the unit and part of that problem is that they use a third party for the billing. When my sort needs to be renewed, I'm never notified. So, six months later, I will have an issue and try to get support for it, and then it will be a big hassle because I was never built for the support to begin with and then they wouldn't give me the support.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Unitrends for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Recently, we've been having some issues that I haven't reported yet. They're related to backups being skipped because some of our servers need an update. I'm not sure why it's happening. It doesn't happen to every server; it's just one server occasionally. And as soon as I do the update, then it's fine.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is where I'm running into more of an issue right now. To upgrade is pretty expensive. It's not like you can just buy a smaller appliance and put it with the one you already have. You need buy a larger appliance and that can get fairly pricey.

How are customer service and technical support?

When I have had to use tech support, they've been very good. I've had a couple instances where something wasn't happening correctly and I called them and got a call back within the hour and we were able to get through it. I've been very happy with the couple times that I needed them.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We were using Backup Exec before that, but they had made updates to their software which I just didn't like at all. It also did not give me the ability to do a bare metal restore if I needed to; that's why I went with the Unitrends.

How was the initial setup?

It was pretty straight forward in setting up at the beginning. The original software was probably a little easier to use than their current software.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I think it's a decent platform to go with; I don't have any issues with it. I guess the one thing that I would say is get a bigger unit than what they recommend because if I had done that, I wouldn't need to be upgrading now; I could have stayed with the same size.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.