Barracuda Backup Server 490 review

Businesses with a cavalier attitude to data backup are asking for trouble, but trying to manage a total data protection strategy can prove the stuff of nightmares.

However, there are solutions that claim to cater for such needs. Barracuda's Backup Servers, for example, can do it all for you as they bring on-site backup, site-to-site replication, cloud backup and full data restoration services all under one roof.

The Backup Server 490 on review has four hot-swap 2TB SATA drives in a RAID-10 array with a maximum backup capacity of 4TB and a suggested usable backup volume of 2TB. This doesn't seem much but the 490 performs variable block level deduplication so capacity will be much higher.

The price includes support for virtually all platforms including Windows, Unix, Linux, Mac OS X and NetWare, Exchange and SQL Server plus VMware and Hyper-V. A key feature is Barracuda's Cloud Control web portal which provides a single location for all backup and restore operations.

The Cloud Control portal provides a single point of access for all backup and restore operations.

Installation and deployment

For installation, we connected the appliance to our local network and provided it with a static IP address from the local console. It could now be left headless as all the action takes place in the Cloud Control portal.

We linked the appliance to our account by entering its serial number and the unique code provided in the box. To test site-to-site replication we linked a second Backup Server and declared it to the local appliance as a replicating target.

When you purchase cloud storage it's automatically linked to your account and is made immediately available. Barracuda offers 200GB chunks with an initial store costing 385 ex VAT per year.

Each system is declared to the portal as a data source and you can select the entire system or browse for specific items.

Backup strategies

For testing we used Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V, Server 2012, Exchange 2007, Windows 7 and 8 plus VMware ESX Server 5 systems, which just needed to be declared as backup sources. Windows systems require a small agent installed from the portal but for VMware you just provide root access.