@Dashrender said:

Again, move away from making regular images of the endpoints. That's home user thinking, not SMB thinking.

I'm still not sure I understand why. I would think the opposite. Home users do NOT do images. Yet, IMO an incremental image based backup is the best you can get.

Let's take for example a 1 person accounting office or a 2 person law firm. It seems to me the method I am looking for would be more efficient for them, not less.

@dafyre said:

This is one of the areas where Aetherstore would really shine, I think. I'm currently using it as a backup target for my lab at work, and it seems to do pretty good (and I have a crappy lab setup, lol).

How does it deal with getting the data offsite?

Though to go from 250GB to 500GB the price goes from $299 to $1049.

@MattSpeller said:

@BRRABill go acronis then like you mentioned in the OP - I used it years ago and it kicked some serious butt for stuff like that.

I was actually looking at that.

http://www.acronis.com/en-us/cloud/backup-service/purchase/

$299 a year for 3 PCs with 250GB. local and cloud.

Doesn't have to be free.

@MattSpeller said:

@BRRABill Yup! I still suggest a synology nas + cloudsync to nas + backup nas to cloud + schedule disk2vhd

Are you overwriting the backup each time you do that? Also, isn't that going to take a considerable amount of time?

It's why I was thining incremental imaged-based would be the way to go.

@scottalanmiller said:

Ah, the requirement to not have a server sounded like a NAS would not be an option since a NAS is just a type of server. That requirement was confusing. If having a NAS is acceptable we have much better options.

Ah, perhaps that is what was confusing people.

Yes, there has to be a place to store the local ShadowProtect/Veeam/Etc backup. But I am looking for cloud replication of those backups, because some of the places I deal with, it's not out of the realm of possibility they backup device would be stolen along with the PC.

I was originally thinking USB drive on each machine, but a NAS would work just as well. And I know some of the NASes out there you can replicate.

Are we getting somewhere?

@scottalanmiller said:

• Get a small NAS to use for backups. Stick with StorageCraft or look at Veeam Endpoint Protection or similar. Use local backup files so that you can actually do fast restores. (You can then send this to a cloud backup location too if desired.)

That is exactly what I am looking to do.

I've many, many, many times told many, many, many SMBs they are wasting time/money/etc and should install a server/etc. It is a huge brick wall most of the time. And these are my friends, not people we are trying to get jobs from.

It's actually a reason we decided not to go into the small (20 person or less) MSP space. (I'll have to post on the MSP thread another day.) It's just too much time fighting to get companies to a simple baseline.

IBut, I am interested in all the great new product ideas this thread will pop up, and I am sure we'll get a good solution. Errrr...a solution that is OK, at least!

@scottalanmiller said:

@BRRABill said:

No, they are physical.

Pretty much no one does image backups of physical desktops, because it is virtualization that generally powers the image-based backup system.

Most of the SMB people I help are not enterprise. I know best practice would be to have a server, have all data on that, and voila. But almost none of the really small businesses I see do that. They run their business and have a bunch of personal files on their machines.

To be honest, I do the same. My work laptop has a ton of personal stuff on it. I use ShadowProtect for images, and also CrashPlan for file-level.

@MattSpeller said:

It sounds a bit like you're trying to reinvent the wheel a bit, no offence intended.

Why not have restore disks hot and ready for these PC's and do crashplan? That will cover you WAY better if you replace a tower too.

None taken. I feel the same way, which is why I asked.

The users store a lot of data on their machines. In my experience it would take far too long to restore then pull the data back down. They used to have a service that they would express you the data, but that is now quite pricey and it adds a few days to the equation.

Also a good way to ensure the backups are actually working. Virtualboot the image every now and again.

@Dashrender said:

Boot it on what? For example, if you store the images on a NAS, you can't boot the image on the NAS, it doesn't have a hypervisor to run it on.

Both ShadowProtect and Datto use VirtualBox.

I'd take a laptop there with VirtualBox, copy the image over, and boot it.

@Dashrender said:

Whatever you're using for the VM's you could spin up a new VM and restore the Veeam EPP image to the VM, reboot, configure drivers (will probably always need to be done) and then you're golden.

That Veeam free product is intriguing.

I wonder if there is any good way to replicate that offsite.

That would probably be exactly what I am looking for.

@Dashrender said:

But what are you going to run those VMs on when the PC fails and you need to use it?

The VM is just a temporary fix.

Boot the VM. Fix (or replace) the PC, then do a bare metal to get it back up and running.

@DustinB3403 said:

The only way you'd be able to take advantage of a VM "backup" is if you have the infrastructure for it.

Perhaps I"m not explaining myself properly. (Good probability!)

Using ShadowProtect you can use the backup to boot a virtual copy of the machine so they can use that while you are reconstructing the broken machine. Same thing with our Datto box. We can export either a VMDK or VHD and virtual boot the system up in a few minutes. I'm looking for something like that if it is around, but in more of a SMB package.

I do like file-based backups such as the ones that have been mentioned, but I am looking for more of a image-based solution which will not work with services like CrashPlan and the like.

No, they are physical.

I mean I would like the option that, say, ShadowProtect has to be able to spin up the backup as a VM.

I guess I should have clarified this more when I said I wanted to spin up a VM, but I need this to be an image based backup so they can get back up and running quicker.

I just assumed (I know, I know) everyone does image backups these days.

I also use CrashPlan but in the event of a system crash, it's a pain.

I have a friend who has a business with 5 PCs they want to back up. For various reasons, they do not want a server. They need all 5 PCs running separatelty, and want backups. They also need to be able to retain versions of the files for 7 years.

I was wondering what products you guys use for scenarios like this.

I was thinking about something like Acronis with the cloud option, but figured I would come here and see what options are out there.

I'd like a local and cloud based copy of the files. I would also like to be able to spin up the backup in a VM.

I use Datto and Shadowprotect, but I'm not sure they are good fits here because of the cost of the cloud retention. I suppose I could manually dump a backup to USB every month, but I'd like something more elegant if possible.

So, as always, I am ready and willing for comments and advice!

@Dashrender said:

With the explosion of new users in the past two weeks, this list could get large!

Glad to help in the explosion!