Hands on: Barracuda Backup 290 review
This review first appeared in issue 359 PC Professional Edition.
Businesses worry about managing hybrids Data protection Strategies may want to consider Barracuda’s backup equipment as they do everything for you. These integrated physical and virtual solutions provide on-site backupcloud replication and full data recovery services, as well as optional site-to-site replication, all managed through a single cloud portal.
Barracuda offers a variety of hardware appliances to choose from, including the entry-level Backup 290, a low-profile 1U rack appliance equipped with a single 2TB SATA hard drive. That might not sound like a lot, but the device’s variable block-level deduplication is very effective. During testing, we backed up 1.7TB of data and Barracuda compressed it to 331GB, an 82% reduction.
Prices start at £2,000 for the Backup 290, Unlimited cloud storage Costs £996 per year. Barracuda’s Energize Update service costs £335 per year, with an instant replacement subscription adding an additional £480 per year.
To install the device, you first need to connect a local monitor and keyboard and link it to your cloud control account. Barracuda offers agents for Windows, macOS, and Linux in the portal, which is good value because the price includes support for unlimited clients and many common business applications.
You use the same agent for all Windows workstations and servers. After installation, we declare each system as a backup source. The advantage of this solution is that during job creation you can check an extra box so that the local backup job automatically copies to cloud.
The agent identifies all hosted applications and gives us the option to select SQL Server databases and virtual machines (VMs) on Windows Server 2022 Hyper-V servers. The VMware host does not require an agent because we claim our vCenter server using its IP address and present all virtual machines on our hosted ESXi servers for selection as backup sources.
Once systems are registered, you can assign them to a default backup schedule, which automatically backs up everything on the system once a day. It’s easy to create custom schedules, assign specific systems and projects, and repeat the job every 15 minutes.
Barracuda uses a “forever incremental” system, running a full backup for each host, followed by periodic incremental backups. Ransomware protection This option is provided because you can use the default retention policy for all hosts, or apply a custom policy to define the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly periods for which you want to retain data.
for File recoverywe select the system from the portal, select files and folders and restore them to their original location or to another system. The same window provides access to the cloud repository, where a “Download” option copies the data back to the system running the Cloud Control Portal.
We can restore selected Hyper-V and VMware VMs directly from the appliance to their respective hosts or alternate locations, and if the appliance is unavailable, you can download its virtual disks from the cloud repository. Energize Update subscription enables LiveBoot functionality so you can quickly restore a virtual machine directly to the appliance when the hypervisor is shut down.
The Cloud LiveBoot feature features instant replacement subscriptions, allowing virtual machines to be hosted in the Barracuda cloud for up to 7 days for testing, backup verification and file recovery. Internet outages are also covered, as the device has a local web console that provides a recovery browser and live launch management tools.
Barracuda’s Backup 290 can easily manage hybrid data protection strategies, making it an attractive option for time-pressed small and medium-sized businesses. It’s easy to deploy and manage, block-level deduplication saves significant storage space, and offers an impressive array of data recovery capabilities.
