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CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs MSP360 Backup comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 15, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

CTERA Enterprise File Servi...
Ranking in Cloud Backup
12th
Ranking in Disaster Recovery (DR) Software
8th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (2nd), NAS (9th), Cloud Migration (7th), Cloud Storage (10th), Cloud Storage Gateways (2nd), Content Collaboration Platforms (12th)
MSP360 Backup
Ranking in Cloud Backup
44th
Ranking in Disaster Recovery (DR) Software
27th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (56th), MSP Backup (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud Backup category, the mindshare of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MSP360 Backup is 0.7%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Backup
 

Featured Reviews

Igal Muginstein - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers flexibility, fast performance, and ransomware protection
The platform is releasing new features at a fast pace, which sometimes leads to version updates every three to six months. Although updates are generally not complex, it is challenging to stop the production environment during these updates, even if the downtime is just a few minutes. This is a common challenge across all NAS providers. From my perspective, the most important area for improvement is developing a method to perform updates without affecting customer production environments. Additionally, there are some cache size limitations that might become problematic for future use cases, though they don’t impact current applications. Collaboration for NFS and SMB protocols could also be enhanced. Although this issue isn't specific to CTERA, it is something we are working on together to improve. The quality of the versions has improved, but occasional issues still arise. All solutions face this challenge, but we hope to see a continued reduction in the number of bugs. That said, we haven't had any major production problems in the last four years, and we appreciate how responsive CTERA is to our issues. We engage in brainstorming sessions together, and we value this relationship.
CONRAD FORREST - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution provides the ability to backup all types of cloud drives, is inexpensive, and has decent support
MSP360 Backup provides the backup functionality, but we need to provide the storage component. We can use Azure, AWS, or another provider, but we need to choose the storage provider and create a bucket to store our data. The vendor is making changes to improve the functionality of the service and the separation of storage, but I would like to see more integration and a knowledge base of the tool. Currently trying to understand why the storage is separated and how to implement the storage properly is a challenge. Using the solution incurs additional charges for the device storage and backup which are not included in the service. Unlike other solutions such as Kohl which includes everything at one price. MSP360 Backup can be improved by adding inclusive pricing.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is a three-in-one solution for us. It is a file-sharing platform, an archiving solution, and also a backup solution."
"CTERA is a very scalable product, allowing us to grow."
"The best feature is the migration tool within CTERA."
"The support is awesome. It is top-notch. I would rate their support a ten out of ten."
"The solution provides substantial flexibility, allowing the separation of workloads across various hardware platforms without vendor lock-in. This flexibility makes it adaptable to future infrastructure changes."
"CTERA has out-of-the-box data protection capabilities."
"Our main reason for going for this solution was the uncontrollable growth of file data. It was unsustainable on our previous platform or technology. We needed something scalable like CTERA, so it was the scalability that we required."
"CTERA's instantaneous and redundant file replication, available across multiple geographical locations, ensures easy and user-friendly recovery."
"The solution is easy to access and handles things efficiently."
"Client-side encryption minimizes worries about data being captured on the back-end."
"The most valuable feature for me is that I can see what has has been successfully backed up and what not. I do not mean the file or folder view, because that's problematic with GDPR, but I mean which machines have successfully backed up. It's very valuable because you don't have to check the machines. The second feature is that you can change backup settings in the portal."
"General ease of use and performance of the Windows version is the most valuable feature."
"Block level transfers have significantly reduced the amount of time for transfers over some other solutions"
"Technical support is very good."
"One massive advantage of this solution, as compared to more enterprise products, is that no firewall changes are needed on the client's premises. For the product to back up from the client's premise to the cloud, it just needs port 8 and port 443, which are anyway always open. This was one of the things that made us decide to go with the product. It is very difficult to justify a firewall change for a small client who doesn't even know what a firewall is and how to maintain a firewall, or doesn't have anybody maintaining their firewall. You then have to maintain the firewall. MSP360 Backup takes away firewall change requirements, VPNs, or channels that are needed for the backup."
"The most valuable feature of MSP360 Backup is its reliability."
 

Cons

"One of the bigger things that I would like to see is additional logging. There are logs in there. They provide us with the initial logs on what is happening on our CTERA device. I appreciate that, but they do not give us any further information. I would like to have more information on the logs themselves."
"They fixed all the requirements that we had in the beginning. The beginning was a little bit rough, but we tuned it nicely. However, in some cases, they could improve performance."
"AI and automation features could enhance the platform, such as AI-powered search, predictive storage analytics, and intelligent alerts for proactive monitoring. Predictive storage analytics will help with better capacity planning. There can be some sort of intelligent alerts for proactive monitoring."
"The web portal that our users access to view data and backups could be optimized. CTERA could apply some of the improvements made to their administrative interface on the user side. The administrators are a much smaller group of people than the users, so it would be helpful if they targeted user experience resources to them."
"It would help to have a global single-pane-of-glass view of all my CTERA devices. We have different regions, and we must log in to each portal to see what's happening with those. It would be nice to have a single portal to see the health of the devices, versions, and firmware upgrades. Sometimes, we want to dive into something more complex, like investigating why CTERA storage usage grew from 2 terabytes to 4 terabytes in a week. That's a little challenging. It's something we would like to see on the road map."
"It has a learning curve."
"Stability-wise, we just went through one issue that they addressed. We were having cloud sync issues."
"The new Edge filer that they have comes with a lot more features than what we purchased. It would be better if we are able to add those extra features without having to swap out the hardware. A clear upgrade path for legacy customers would be beneficial."
"The interface feels like it is targeted for end users who typically are looking for an all-in-one integrated push button solution. It would be better if the interface had a beginner mode and an expert mode."
"Using the solution incurs additional charges for the device storage and backup which are not included in the service."
"The solution needs a better graphical user interface. It's a graphical user interface that is very old-school right now. They could give it a little more modern feel."
"The main improvement is that it should have GDPR compliance. That's the problematic point. They say they are GDPR compliant, but they are not."
"The product could be more user-friendly."
"As for what can be improved, some reports could be simplified so that you know how much backup you have done and what your backup details are. That report is available but it is very tough to get. I would like to know "today I have just uploaded 35 MB, tomorrow I have loaded 10 MB so my trend of backup is increasing.""
"They can add some production backup capabilities and the ability to do single instance back up. At the moment, it doesn't do deduplication on the standard backup. So, the issue is backing up PSG files for customers who have limited bandwidth. The other issue is that I don't like the implementation of the SQL backup. We do use SQL ourselves using a PowerShell script with the VDA tools as a module. That's how we back up. The rotation feature would be nice to have, but I know that they've got it on their dashboard or on their list to look at. They can also do a few tweaks to the dashboard. I would like the reporting capabilities on the portal to be much more granular. Normally, I export it to a text file, and then I run it through a pivot table in order to look at it from a cost-recovery point of view and to see when the backup last ran and if it was successful when it ran two or three days ago. Such a feature would work really well for my market. They can also add a cost-effective backup for Android and Apple cellphones. I've had one or two customers who were looking for this feature. I haven't found this functionality at the moment. I've been looking for a product that does that."
"The restore time could improve. When we had an issue the restore time was lengthy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards."
"CTERA's pricing model is competitive compared to other companies that achieve the same thing. Their closest rival is Nasuni, and CTERA is significantly more affordable than Nasuni."
"I find the pricing reasonable. They offered us deals that helped us. Especially with the upgrade to a bigger unit last year, they were helpful with the deal."
"So far, pricing seems to be fine."
"It is hard to compare the costs if we want to retain the same model of a separate high-performance storage or certain things, but it is one of the cheapest solutions available in Israel."
"CTERA's pricing seems to be on par with some of the other players, such as Nasuni and Azure. They all have benefits, but CTERA is competitive for its features."
"It is fairly priced. I am not too involved in the pricing of what we used to pay, but it would have reduced the cost of ownership. I cannot give a figure, but the EMC solution was very expensive compared to CTERA."
"Pricing is reasonable although can be quite a large upfront cost."
"We have a very good return on investment."
"I rate the price of MSP360 Backup a seven out of ten."
"It provides a good cost savings compared to our previous cloud backup."
"MSP360 is vastly cheaper than its competitors and has almost all the same features."
"The cost is pretty inexpensive. Around four to five dollars per device, per workstation on each server."
"It includes a standard licensing fee. Once a year, there is a rebranding fee. The licensing costs are available on the internet for MSP360 Backup. There is a discount structure where if you have over 50 devices, you get a 50% discount. So, my cost is $2 a license per month."
"Its pricing needs improvement."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
70%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Educational Organization
4%
University
3%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards.
What needs improvement with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
One area for improvement is the migration tool, which at times does not work as designed, necessitating the use of alternative solutions like Robocopy. AI and automation features could enhance the ...
What is your primary use case for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
We use it as a hosted cloud solution. We had initially tried Azure File Sync, but that did not work. Due to certain security concerns, I was tasked with researching alternatives. I evaluated severa...
What do you like most about MSP360 Backup?
MSP360 Backup's most valuable feature is its backup interface.
What needs improvement with MSP360 Backup?
The product could be more user-friendly. Its pricing needs improvement as well.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Cloudberry Backup
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

McDonald's, WPP, US Navy, Gore, Festo, Stryker, Bezeq, PERI
StratX
Find out what your peers are saying about CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs. MSP360 Backup and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
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