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N-able Cove Data Protection vs Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

N-able Cove Data Protection
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (33rd), Cloud Backup (18th), SaaS Backup (8th), MSP Backup (1st)
Veeam Agent for Microsoft W...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Per MøllerJacobsen - PeerSpot reviewer
Delivers cost-effective data backup with room for search improvements
The challenges I face especially are those I've mentioned, that finding some specific data in N-able Cove Data Protection is not as easy as it is in some other systems. You cannot just search for something—you need to know where it was and when it was there to restore it, plus it would be nice to take out data from Microsoft 365 in some portable format, which is currently not an option. I would like to extract the data from Microsoft 365 in a portable format, something like a database or maybe just to take out a PST file or SharePoint and Teams files to the file system. Especially in these times, where we discuss potential risks with the Microsoft cloud for European companies, companies would want to know how to access their data from the backup if they suddenly don't have a tenant. I believe there should be the ability to take out data from Microsoft 365 in a portable format. I know that Cohesity is working on making such a thing. It's not there yet; I asked last week for something for forensics, and the support team said it's not possible yet, but I know from our technical account manager they are working on some solutions.
Salman Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Functional application availability
There are not many options available for AIX backup. They provide the agent for AIX, but it could be more mature, and they should improve that option. They also provide the AIX agent, which is similar to the Windows and Linux agents. Since we use AIX machines, we need to take backups of those machines. However, the options available in that agent are limited. Therefore, the new version should have improvements in that area.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable aspect is the added protection of having a cloud-based backup service. It provides redundancy in case of data loss."
"The user interface is the most valuable. It gives us the ability to check everything. With more than 100 endpoints running that software, I like the ability to quickly check that everything is working correctly. That's one of the biggest selling points."
"It's extremely important that Cove provides cloud-based data protection with backup, disaster recovery, and archiving. That is a necessity for my insurance. As an IT company, my insurance would cost more if my backups were not offsite and off-network."
"The most valuable feature of N-able Cove Data Protection is its ease of use."
"The monitoring makes it very easy to check whether a backup has gone bad."
"Because the package includes cloud storage, we don't need to worry about hosting it inside. That was very important to us. And because the vendor has data centers worldwide, our reps in Europe and other places can get to what they need quickly and easily."
"The solution has reduced backup times by an immeasurable amount. Its backups are incremental, so you are only backing up data changes based on the last 24 hours or so. If you are also maintaining the stored images, the restores are also only incremental, happening in minutes. Whereas, with a lot of the other solutions that we have looked at, each time it goes to refresh the restore, then it has to build a completely new image. That takes forever. This solution also improves recovery time."
"For starters, this is one of few databases that allow us to backup MySQL databases, most others only support Microsoft SQL. This solution also has a very user-friendly interface accessed through a web browser. Additionally, backups can be easily configured through N-able Backup."
"To do the actual backup configuration is also not too bad."
"It is good and easy to use for backing up physical servers. It is working fine, and it is stable and scalable."
"The user interface is good. It provides a lot of information."
"Veeam is very useful for the Hyper-V environment."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"User-friendly data backup and protection solution for a Windows environment. The Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows is very scalable, stable, and has good compatibility and integration."
"It's powerful and user-friendly."
"A full-featured option for managing virtual machines with an instant recovery feature."
 

Cons

"We don't use the solution’s automated recovery testing because SolarWinds made me cross. When they released it, I went, "Oh, well, that's quite good." Because if you use the system, then it supposedly spins up, and on the portal, it gives you a screenshot of the booted device. So, I phoned up, and I said, "Oh, that's really quite cool. How much is that?" They said, "No, no, no. It's all included in your license." I went, "Okay then," and went and deployed it on about half the fleet. One of the options that our customers have is they can pay us a small amount every month for us to test the recovery just to prove that it's viable, and I thought, "Well, this will do that for us. Nice." Then, in the next invoice, we got a charge for it. While It was not a huge amount, I took offense at the fact that we were told that it would be a no extra cost option that was part of our license, but it turns out that it's chargeable. Therefore, we haven't used it since."
"A better default view on my dashboard would be great. There is a lot of useless information there that it pulls up. They could present the dashboard slightly better, in terms of the extra information after the first five columns. The first five columns are awesome. After that, I don't care about the rest, and there are another seven things after that."
"The recovery side, the restore side, could be a little more optimized."
"An area for improvement that would really work out well would be if there were a little bit more of an elegant handshake relationship between SolarWinds RMM and the PCs that are being backed up, to advise regarding "up" status... Since RMM is an agent that feeds back that a machine is alive and on, I don't see any reason why they can't either tap into that one feature or build the same exact polling within the backup agent, to update right away and say the system is online or offline."
"Having the licensing available for partners to be able to take advantage of testing without paying would make a big difference."
"One area I don't like has to do with the agent that goes on the system... if a system stays offline for some length of time, say for a week or so, I may have to go back in and reinstall the agent to get it back in business. I don't know what's causing that."
"We would like to have better reporting."
"This solution is not very good for image restores, mainly just files. The solution also does not allow you to enable or disable backups. Sometimes, our users will connect via mobile device and it will use their data to perform the backup. If they were able to enable and disable the backup, they would not have this issue."
"There are not many options available for AIX backup. They provide the agent for AIX, but it could be more mature."
"The support could be improved a lot, as it is currently non-existent."
"If you are doing an AIX backup then you have to use the CLI because it doesn't appear on the console, the way that Windows and Linux jobs do."
"We can't use tape for primary storage on Veeam."
"The solution lacks instant recovery."
"Troubleshooting is very hard."
"I am not very impressed by the technical support I received when I had an issue."
"In the next release, I would like to see it easier to implement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The only option I would like to see is an adjustable scale. Right now we have 250 seats and we're not using all of them. It would be nice to be able to save that little bit of money by being able to buy just what we need."
"The pricing is very competitive and it's well worth the price."
"The pricing, for now, is good. The package that they gave us recently is pretty good. It depends on how many clients you have, and you pay for certain terabytes per license. These terabytes, if not used, are pooled together."
"Cove only takes the data you have on the physical server. I can back that up for long periods of time, and I don't accrue high charges to have the data in the cloud. It stays at one rate. This allows me to forecast payment for the next one or two years and show clients their estimated growth."
"The pricing of SolarWinds seems to be fair compared to the rest of the industry."
"The price isn't extreme, but I'd love to pay less."
"When you have a device/appliance on the site quite a lot of the other enterprise class backup people insist that you have their appliance, which is frankly offensively expensive. Because when you pry the top off, it's just a standard 19-inch tin box with a standard Intel I5 in it, some RAM, and a hard drive. Then, you go, "Why have they just charged me 5,500 quid for a box, which I could have probably build for under 500." Whereas, with the SolarWinds product, they don't have that. The backup appliances that we have onsite are just plain cooking PCs. We can build our own machines, which is reflected in the price that we can offer a customer."
"I believe that the price is very reasonable in comparison to other options. It is cheaper than both Redstor and Acronis and, since we are now using our own on-premise cloud, there is absolutely no comparison since we have unlimited storage rather than paying per gigabyte used for their onsite storage. We are currently able to backup fifty computers for the same price that we use to backup five computers."
"Pricing is based on license packaging and duration. Longer term licenses are less per year and license packages also offer a discount."
"The pricing model is based on CPU and must be declared as Microsoft or VMware licensing."
"We have the Community Edition and I believe we bought a license for 200 instances. Veeam Agent is mainly used for our branch offices. Those only have one or two Hyper-V servers, so it's covered with the Community Edition. Basically, it's free. I remember Veeam 7.0 or 8.0 wasn't free, but the Community Edition is."
"It is less expensive than one of its variants."
"The cost for its licenses is reasonable and as per industry standards."
"We have an annual license."
"The solution is free of cost for end users but for enterprise use, a license per user is required."
"We pay for a three-year subscription to use Veeam Agent."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
Photography Company
25%
Performing Arts
24%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Real Estate/Law Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about N-able Backup?
The initial setup of N-able Cove Data Protection was very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for N-able Backup?
In terms of pricing, N-able Cove Data Protection is neither cheap nor expensive compared to other competitors.
What needs improvement with N-able Backup?
The challenges I face especially are those I've mentioned, that finding some specific data in N-able Cove Data Protection is not as easy as it is in some other systems. You cannot just search for s...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

N-able Backup, SolarWinds Backup, SolarWinds MSP Backup & Recovery, SolarWinds MSP Backup
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Computer Depot, Leading Edge Computers, IT Logic Australia
ContinuitySA, Landmark Information Group
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