Best Server Backup Software
Server backup software is used to ensure the information stored or processed through server hardware remains intact in case of mechanical failure or user error. These solutions store the information processed by the server in a remote location, a remote cloud, or on some other on-premises hardware device. Companies use server backup software to prevent data loss in disaster scenarios as well as to ensure their business data or customer business data remains available.
Server backup tools differ from other backup technology in that they communicate directly with the server and operate solely to store its information.
To qualify for inclusion in the Server Backup category, a product must:
Best Server Backup Software At A Glance
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Acronis delivers the world’s most complete cyber resilience platform, combining backup, disaster recovery, cybersecurity, RMM, and business operations tools into a single, natively integrated solution
Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud is a unified platform that integrates backup, cybersecurity, disaster recovery and endpoint protection into a single solution. Users like the platform's ability to combine backup, disaster recovery, and cybersecurity into one platform, its user-friendly dashboard, and its reliable backup and recovery process. Reviewers noted that some features can feel complex to configure initially, especially for new users, and the interface could be more intuitive in certain areas, and the pricing can also be slightly high compared to basic backup-only solutions, especially for smaller organisations.
94,907 Twitter followers
NinjaOne unifies IT to simplify work for 35,000+ customers in 140+ countries. The NinjaOne Unified IT Operations Platform delivers endpoint management, autonomous patching, backup, and remote acces
NinjaOne is a remote monitoring and management tool that offers features such as patch management, remote access, IT documentation, and automation. Users frequently mention the ease of use, the ability to automate tasks across numerous devices, the constant improvements and enhancements, and the responsive customer support as key benefits of NinjaOne. Users mentioned issues such as the lack of a dark mode, occasional UI quirks, limited report customization, high pricing for smaller teams, and a steep learning curve for advanced setup as drawbacks of the product.
3,529 Twitter followers
#1 Global Leader in Data Resilience We keep businesses worldwide up and running From secure backups to intelligent data insights, Veeam Data Platform is engineered to tackle the realities of t
Veeam Data Platform is a complex software solution designed for data backup and recovery across various environments including on-premises, virtualized, and cloud. Users like the platform's reliability, comprehensive features, fast and dependable backup and restore processes, and the confidence it provides in data protection. Users mentioned that the software's complexity can require a lot of research to understand, the initial setup and licensing model can be complex, and the platform can be resource-intensive.
51,585 Twitter followers
Over the past decade, data risks have diversified, shifting data protection’s role from a passive last line of defense to an active data partner in responding to and recovering from diverse data risks
Druva Data Security Cloud is a cloud-native, SaaS-based platform designed for enterprise data protection across various environments, including endpoints, cloud apps, servers, and VMs. Reviewers like the platform's ease of use, quick setup, centralized management, and strong security features, including end-to-end encryption, ransomware protection, and compliance capabilities, as well as its responsive and helpful customer support. Users experienced some limitations with the product, such as slow initial backups and restores for large datasets, less flexible advanced role-based controls and reporting options, and performance dependency on network speed.
19,158 Twitter followers
Datto SIRIS is an all-in-one BCDR solution built for MSPs to efficiently prevent data loss and minimize downtime. Utilizing a cloud-first approach, MSPs can offer their clients local backup and re
Datto BCDR is a backup and disaster recovery solution that provides data protection and quick recovery processes. Reviewers like the product's dependability, straightforward setup, robust security features, and its ability to restore individual files quickly, which is crucial for protecting against data loss and accidental deletions. Users experienced issues with the interface being complicated, slower backup speeds when dealing with large amounts of data, high cost, and difficulties in pulling up detailed reports.
17,436 Twitter followers
Cove Data Protection, from N-able, is a cloud-first backup and disaster recovery service for servers, workstations, and Microsoft 365™, all managed from a multitenant web-based dashboard. Cove was
Cove Data Protection is a tool that helps to backup and recover servers, workstations, and Microsoft 365, and provides a centralized dashboard for management. Users frequently mention the ease of use, quick implementation, strong customer support, smooth integration with RMM tools, and the efficient data backup and restoration process. Reviewers experienced issues with limited advanced reporting, expensive pricing, slow large data recoveries, and a lack of notification settings, along with slow restoration dependent on a good internet connection.
15,897 Twitter followers
Azure Backup is a centralized cloud-based service designed to protect your data across various environments, including on-premises and cloud-based infrastructures. It offers enterprise-grade data prot
13,088,482 Twitter followers
NAKIVO Backup & Replication is a fast, affordable and top-rated backup and disaster recovery solution for VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, Proxmox VE, physical machines, NAS, Micros
NAKIVO Backup & Replication is a data protection solution that covers both on-premises and cloud infrastructure, offering features like deduplication, compression, and flexible recovery options. Users frequently mention the product's speed, reliability, and ease of use, as well as the helpful and informative support team and the ability to manage backups in one place. Users reported issues with the user interface performance, which can feel slow when managing multiple backup jobs, and a lack of detailed documentation for some advanced features.
1,373 Twitter followers
IDrive protects all your PCs, Macs, mobile devices, Servers, your Cloud Applications Data (SAAS) including Office 365, Google Workspace and more, and provides the best in class S3 compatible Object St
IDrive Online and SaaS Backup, Object Storage e2 is a backup solution that supports multi-platform and provides storage for data backup. Users frequently mention the ease of use, intuitive nature, and the flexibility of accessing it on multiple operating systems and devices, along with its competitive pricing and large storage capacity. Users mentioned issues with the inability to do a Mac Time Machine backup directly to IDrive, lack of further security measures like email OTP or integration with Microsoft Authenticator, and the desire for improved user interface and file management.
17,872 Twitter followers
Embrace secure data portability and leverage tools that go above native capabilities for AWS. With Veeam’s leading policy-based protection, you can reliably recover from accidental deletion, ransomwar
51,585 Twitter followers
Rubrik is the leading cyber resilience and data protection company with a mission to secure the world’s data. Rubrik pioneered Zero Trust Data SecurityTM to help organizations achieve business resilie
Rubrik is a data management platform that provides backup, recovery, and cybersecurity solutions. Users like Rubrik for its user-friendly interface, reliable and consistent backups, fast recovery, scalability, easy integration with cloud platforms, and its unified approach to data protection across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Users mentioned that the AI integration could be improved, the logs aren't descriptive enough to diagnose issues immediately, there's a need for more features and analytics, cost control and reporting can be challenging, installation on Linux devices can be complicated, advanced reporting and customization are needed, speed could be improved, pricing could be more flexible, and it's not easy to deploy in an air-gapped environment.
43,853 Twitter followers
# 1 SaaS Data Protection Platform 12x more protection across on-prem, cloud services, and SaaS. HYCU is a data protection solution for cloud, SaaS, virtual, file shares, and physical workloads.
HYCU is a backup solution used for controlled backups of mission critical platforms and Nutanix clusters, and for backing up entire SaaS portfolios. Reviewers like the ease of setup, the ability to perform granular restores, the seamless integration with Nutanix and AWS, and the responsive customer support. Users experienced limitations in scheduling jobs, lack of certain features compared to competitors, unclear error messages in logs, and increasing costs depending on the amount of data or advanced features needed.
5,130 Twitter followers
Synology ActiveProtect is a purpose-built backup appliance solution designed to centralize, protect, and recover enterprise data via a unified platform. Keep an eye on your backups no matter where you
67,314 Twitter followers
Backblaze B2 is S3 compatible cloud object storage built purposefully to unlock budgets, unburden administrators, and unleash innovators. Delivering performance at 1/5 the cost including free egress u
Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage is a cloud storage solution that provides data backup and storage services. Users like the affordability, simplicity, and reliability of Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage, appreciating its fast upload and download speed, seamless integration with third-party apps, and the ease of setup and configuration. Reviewers noted that the user interface can be technical for new users, the process of browsing stored data can be slow and cumbersome, and the setup process can be unnecessarily difficult.
17,839 Twitter followers
Vinchin is a professional provider of data protection solutions for enterprises. It provides a series of data backup, instant recovery, and offsite DR solutions for private cloud, public cloud and hyb
Vinchin Backup & Recovery is a web console that manages backup needs, allowing users to set up backup jobs and restore data. Reviewers appreciate the product's reliability, automation, and centralized management, highlighting its ability to consistently back up servers, databases, and virtual machines without interrupting workflows. Users reported that the interface can feel heavy when many jobs are running, especially on mid-range hardware, and that some advanced configuration options require technical familiarity.
1 Twitter followers
Learn More About Server Backup Software
What is Server Backup Software?
As businesses go digital and build their digital presence, they increasingly rely on servers as a key part of daily function. Servers are, in essence, computers with massive storage and processing power that centralize data or computing resources. Businesses use servers to consolidate key data and information for both access and security reasons.
Imagine, though, that a business’ server—or one of their servers—crashes. A hard drive might fail. The entire stack could lose power. Worse, the server might get subjected to a power surge and fry the hardware. If that data wasn’t duplicated somewhere, it could be lost permanently, which could mean serious issues for the business.
Server backup tools are specifically designed for these situations. These solutions can back up all data and files that sit on a server, and some can even be used to directly restore that data to the server after an issue is resolved. At minimum, server backup solutions act as a safety net for businesses, giving them recovery options for their data after an issue occurs. Backups can be kept on a different server on premises or remotely; just don’t keep them on the same server you’re backing up.
Key Benefits of Server Backup Software
- Copy and save key data
- Manage backup scheduling at different levels
- Scale with data requirements
Why Use Server Backup Software?
Have you ever worked on a project on your computer for hours, just to have the program or your computer crash and lose everything? Imagine that happening, but instead of just with that one project, it was with all of your business data.
Server backup—like any other kind of backup—is not valuable for when everything is working normally but, instead, for when something goes wrong. Server backup solutions help to ensure that even when your storage location fails, there’s another location that still has all the data you need. How much of that data is retained depends on how your backups are scheduled. There are valid arguments for making your backups incremental vs. differential, as well as for how often you choose to back your server up. Generally though, the more data you have, and the more important that data is, the more beneficial it is to back up your server as often as possible.
It’s important to note that server backups are different from server replication. Server replication is often constant and live, and can replicate to several servers simultaneously. Server backup, on the other hand, is typically scheduled, run manually or automatically, and goes to one place. Server replication is also built to be an immediate failover, whereas server backup software focuses more on recovering what might have been lost.
Given the benefits, let’s look at why businesses specifically use server backup tools.
Capacity — Other kinds of backup software aren’t built to handle the same volume of data as server backup software. Servers can potentially store hundreds of terabytes (hundreds of thousands of gigabytes) of data, while standard backup solutions cannot.
Peace of mind — It can be incredibly reassuring knowing your key business data is protected. Server backups are essentially a second copy of your servers, which means that as long as the server data was backed up, any of it can be recovered. Plus, with some server backup solutions capable of tracking the history of your backups, you may be able to recover your data to certain historical points beyond the most recent backup, just in case there was data in the most recent backup that is incorrect or could be problematic.
One important thing to note though, especially with server backups: Be aware of whose responsibility it is for the backups themselves. With a cloud backup where your business doesn’t own the server, the onus of responsibility will be on the backup server owner. However, if backing up to another one of your business’ own servers, the responsibility for your server backups is completely in your hands.
Who Uses Server Backup Software?
Any business with a server should be using server backup software for their data. That said, typically, server administrators will be the only ones interacting with the server backup software itself. Verifying server health is part of their daily workflow, and backing up server data is part of that process.
For especially large or complex companies, however, there may be a few more teams or people that would interact with server backup solutions. Some companies have dedicated data teams that might take the backup responsibility off the hands of server administrators as a part of their responsibility to the company’s data. It’s also possible that security teams might be involved with server backup solutions to safeguard the data being duplicated.
Kinds of Server Backup Software
The following are some ways that server backup software distinguish themselves from other solutions.
Free vs. paid — When dealing with server backup software, free backup software can be limited in functionality compared to its paid counterparts, or it might have more limitations around data handling than paid versions. Also, free versions of server backup solutions might be great for giving the software a try, but free versions often gate either the functionality or the data volume the software has available. If looking into a free server backup solution, be sure that it has the capabilities your business requires. Otherwise, look into paid options.
Local vs. cloud vs. hybrid — Server backup solutions are generally built for backing servers up to one of three places: a local server, a cloud server, or some combination thereof. Solutions focusing on one particular option—local or cloud—have been popular in the past, but it’s likely in the future that more products allow the option to back your server up to a mix of the two, as there can be value in balancing cloud and local resources. Some products already offer this functionality through their backup location selection.
Open-source vs. proprietary — Unlike proprietary server backup solutions, open-source server backup software can be modified at the code level to change the functionality of the solution. Open-source software can be stronger from a customization standpoint, but it may struggle in base functionality because it’s generally less expensive or free as compared to its proprietary counterparts. Be sure, if opting for an-open source solution, that any changes you might make don’t alter the security parameters of the solution as well. It would be worth consulting with your data security team when making code changes to the solution to make sure it doesn’t leave your data vulnerable to attacks or leaks.
Server Backup Software Features
While not an exhaustive list, the following are the features you will typically find in server backup software.
Diverse file type coverage — Server backup solutions should not exclude data from backup based on file type. Critical data can be a variety of types—documents, spreadsheets, and more—and an effective server backup solution can handle copying any file type.
Backup location determination — An important aspect of any backup is making sure your data will be preserved somewhere that best fits your company’s needs and security standards. Server backup solutions should allow your company to select their most suitable backup location.
Scheduling and automation — Manual backup can be nice in a pinch, but forgetting to run a backup can make a huge difference in the amount of critical data that is lost in a server failure. With scheduling and automation features, server backup solutions allow you to run your server backups automatically, whenever you need them.
Backup management — Server backup software should allow your business to manage the backups that have been made. While the software may not allow holding backups beyond a certain point, your business should still be able to manage any recent backups, either as reference points or to remove.
Partition selection — Partitions—isolated segmentations within a hard drive that can be independently managed—can be valuable assets for businesses. They help ensure that certain information or data can be separated from the rest to prevent corruption or other issues. Server backup solutions must be capable of handling backing up each distinct partition from a drive so that important data is not lost in a failure.
Data compression — As previously mentioned, servers can store huge quantities of data. Compressing that data while backing up your servers can help reduce the amount of storage space needed for the backup itself, which can potentially save your business money.
Backup type selection — Full backups are often time-consuming, which makes them impractical to run regularly. Server backup solutions should offer the capability to run both differential and incremental backups as ways to keep your data duplicated and safe, without needing numerous hours to run a full-out backup.
Scaling — Some businesses have more server data than others, and regardless of business size, the volume of data your servers have can change rapidly. Server backup solutions should scale with your data needs to ensure your data is always backed up.
Potential Issues with Server Backup Software
Security and encryption — Few server backup solutions come with active security features. When using a server backup software, be sure to work with your data security team to lock down your data backups as much—or more—than the server itself. You don’t want to leave your business’ data vulnerable and up for the taking.
Support — This issue may present itself more with free or open-source tools. When something goes wrong with a software product itself, it’s helpful to be able to reach out to a company’s support team for assistance. Many free or open-source products don’t offer the same kind of support structure as proprietary, paid solutions. Your business may end up consulting open forums of existing users for free or open-source solutions, whereas with proprietary, paid solutions, you’ll likely be consulting with a member of that software company’s support staff.
