Arctera Backup Exec Reviews & Product Details

Backup Exec is a simple, secure, unified and comprehensive data protection software solution. It is designed to help organizations protect their data by providing a range of features for backup, disaster recovery, and archiving. Key features of Backup Exec include: Data Backup: Backup Exec offers flexible backup options for various environments, including virtual machines, physical servers, cloud storage, and databases. It can back up data from both on-premises and cloud-based systems. Disaster Recovery: The software includes tools for disaster recovery, ensuring that businesses can quickly restore their critical systems and data in the event of a system failure, data corruption, or cyberattack. Cross-Platform Support: It supports a wide range of operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and VMware, as well as cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. Centralized Management: Backup Exec provides a centralized interface to manage backups, monitor system status, and configure backup policies, making it easier for IT administrators to oversee the entire backup environment. File and Application Protection: It includes specialized agents for backing up applications like Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, and SharePoint, as well as file-level backup. Cloud Integration: Backup Exec integrates with cloud storage, allowing organizations to back up data directly to the cloud for offsite storage and disaster recovery. Encryption and Security: The software offers encryption both during the backup process and for data storage, ensuring that sensitive data is secure and compliant with regulations. Automated Backups: Backup Exec can automate backup tasks based on customizable schedules, reducing manual intervention and ensuring that backups occur regularly. In summary, Backup Exec is a powerful solution for businesses looking to protect and recover their critical data, with a range of features that address the needs of both small and large organizations.

Seller

Arctera

Discussions

Arctera Backup Exec Community

Languages Supported

German, English, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional)

Solution Type

All-in-One

Overview by

Dylon Mills

Value at a Glance

Averages based on real user reviews.

Time to Implement

1 month

Return on Investment

19 months

View More Pricing Information

Top-Rated Alternatives

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User Insights

Average based on 275 real user reviews.

Implementation Time

1 month

Perceived Cost

$$$$$

Arctera Backup Exec Media

Arctera Backup Exec Demo - Backup Exec dashboard

Main Backup Exec monitoring dashboard

Arctera Backup Exec Reviews FAQs

Generated using AI

Last updated: Nov 01, 2026

What is Arctera Backup Exec, and what problem is it built to solve?

Arctera Backup Exec is used to back up server data and restore files or systems when data is deleted, damaged, or needed for disaster recovery. Teams use it to keep recoverable copies of business data and support continuity after an incident.

What languages does Arctera Backup Exec support?

Arctera Backup Exec supports 11 languages, including Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English, French, German, and others.

What company sizes and industries is Arctera Backup Exec the best fit for?

Arctera Backup Exec has positive feedback from organizations of different sizes and industries, with the strongest concentration among mid-market teams. Its use also spans several industry groups:

Company size — Mid-market: The clearest concentration of positive users is in organizations with 51–1,000 employees.
Company size — Small businesses and enterprises: Positive use is also represented among organizations with 50 or fewer employees and those with more than 1,000.
Industries — Technology and industrial sectors: Information technology and services, manufacturing, automotive, and oil and energy are recurring areas of use.
Industries — Other sectors: Education, financial services, healthcare, construction, and retail are also represented.

How long does it take to implement Arctera Backup Exec across a team?

Implementation timelines vary, but teams most often describe getting Arctera Backup Exec live within a day or within a month. Longer deployments are also reported, especially when setup takes more planning.

Time to go live	Relative frequency
Less than one day	Most frequently reported
Less than one month	Also frequently reported
One to three months	Reported less often
Three to six months or longer	Reported occasionally

What customer support options does Arctera Backup Exec provide, and how do users find the overall support experience?

The support experience is mixed: some users describe quick, knowledgeable help and effective troubleshooting, while others find resolution slow or difficult. Positive accounts mention support that can help work through technical issues, but experiences with escalation and clear communication are less consistent.

What is the experience like for teams switching to Arctera Backup Exec from another tool?

Teams have moved to Arctera Backup Exec from other backup products, including Dell NetWorker, Veeam, Acronis, and Arcserve, as well as from native or script-based approaches. Cost, a need for broader backup capabilities, centralized management, and support for tape were among the reasons for choosing it. Some found it a better overall fit, while others were primarily seeking a lower price despite preferring aspects of their previous tool.

What features or capabilities could make Arctera Backup Exec even more useful?

Teams would find Arctera Backup Exec more useful with clearer day-to-day administration and stronger visibility into backup activity. Recurring improvement areas include:

Modernize and simplify the console, dashboard, and navigation.
Expand reporting options and make reports more detailed, customizable, and easier to automate or export.
Improve backup retention and cleanup so expired sets are removed reliably without manual intervention.
Make errors and anomaly alerts more specific so teams can identify the cause and act faster.
Streamline scheduling and job coordination, including linked or grouped jobs and more flexible schedules.

Is Arctera Backup Exec considered safe and secure for handling data?

Users describe Arctera Backup Exec as supporting data protection through encrypted backups and recoverable copies that have helped organizations restore data after ransomware or other incidents. That can provide useful protection, but teams still need to verify backup jobs and test restores to confirm their data is recoverable when needed.

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Jason L.

Network Administrator

Retail

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4/22/2026

"Reliable Backups, but Configuration and Maintenance Are Painfully Hard"

0.5/5

What do you like best about Arctera Backup Exec?

Backup exec was very reliable. Once configured it did what it was supposed to do. Backups were always usable with very few instances of corruption. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Arctera Backup Exec?

When I used it Veritas/Symantec Backup Exec was very hard to configure properly, and updates that the software did get always seemed to be nothing that benefits the administration of it. Cleanup of backups was difficult if you were tight on space over time and required a very long time to perform the scheduled maintenance. The Software was fairly expensive compared to several options. At the time we used it, we already had a large 36 tape drive backup unit for tertiary backups that not all of the other solutions could utilize so deciding to switch took some time. We also had to keep this software up to date for 4 years after we switched to Unitrends in order to restore anything from Backup Exec. Support was pretty much terrible when I was managing it, it was always phone support from outside of our country. There are lots of these situations where the support is still great, but Symantec support was just not good back then. And when Veritas took over it became even worse. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Pam K.

Sysadmin

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

Originally submitted 3/17/2022

"A Must for On-Premise Backups"

5/5

What do you like best about Arctera Backup Exec?

Backup Exec has been the backbone of our on-premises backup strategy for over 20 years. While the software faced some challenging periods, particularly during the Symantec era, Arctera and the current Backup Exec team have made significant strides in restoring and maintaining customer trust. Their commitment to listening to user feedback is unmatched—no other development team we've encountered takes customer concerns as seriously. They actively engage with users ahead of major releases to gather input and adjust features based on community response.

Since around 2015–2016, Backup Exec has been exceptionally stable and reliable. The rare issues we've experienced were almost always tied to corrupted or infected files or broader network problems, not the software itself.

Backup Exec is easy to install and, when deployed in a clean and stable environment, serves as an outstanding disaster recovery solution. One standout feature is its ability to maintain ‘forever’ backups without compressing or altering older data in a way that risks long-term loss—a rare and valuable capability we haven't found in other solutions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Arctera Backup Exec?

The one ongoing frustration we've had with Backup Exec is the frequent changes to its licensing structure. We've always found this aspect challenging. The capacity-based licensing model was a great fit for our needs, but it’s now being replaced just a few years later, forcing another adjustment. These transitions are often confusing and, historically, it's during licensing changes that our backup environment has been most prone to instability. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Arctera Backup Exec:

Make sure you understand how much data you will be backing up, and how much money you want to put into the media to back up those files. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Arctera Backup Exec solving and how is that benefiting you?

Data loss, whether caused by insider threats or external attacks, remains one of the biggest challenges we face. Backup Exec serves as a valuable safety net and can be a significant time-saver for administrators who understand how to manage and maintain a complex environment. With the right care, it becomes an essential tool for protecting critical data against both intentional and unintentional loss. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Giovanni C.

SysAdm

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

Originally submitted 2/7/2023

"A very valuable safeguard tool"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Arctera Backup Exec?

A milestone for virtual machine backup, it allows the recovery of fundamental systems in a few mouse clicks, and guarantees a wide time band depending only on the disk space available to us Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Arctera Backup Exec?

A bit complex in the scheduling of the jobs, especially in the organization at a temporal level A more user-friendly scheduler could be of great help if you need to organize a lot of them Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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Rohan B.

Sr Data Operations Analyst

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

10/16/2025

"Good Features but Needs Better User-Friendliness and Faster Performance"

3.5/5

What do you like best about Arctera Backup Exec?

It's good, but I think it could be more user-friendly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Arctera Backup Exec?

It takes some time to refresh, and occasionally it lags. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Yuvaraja R.

Sr technical Support

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

7/25/2025

"Veritas"

5/5

What do you like best about Arctera Backup Exec?

File & Folder backup good to see and restore are very fast. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Arctera Backup Exec?

Tape level is bit challenging multiple backup solution not given in single console. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Cristian C.

IT & Information Security Analyst

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

Originally submitted 4/4/2023

"It works, but it has a lot of improvement to be made and issues to solve"

2/5

What do you like best about Arctera Backup Exec?

It kind of works. The support is responsive and I hardly have issues with using it on a daily basis. I can access all the features that I need although I could use some more improvement. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Arctera Backup Exec?

I don't like the fact that I need to install Adobe Reader and not another PDF reader to be able to export my report to a PDF file. I don't like not being able to export reports or history of my jobs already completed in PDF or automatically to a network share. The error messages are so generic that even Veritas support team can't understand what is going on with the issues that happen, which are kind of a few per week. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Arctera Backup Exec solving and how is that benefiting you?

To be able to keep and safeguard my data from my servers and also from my Netapp storage. It works automatically and I hardly need to solve any issues as most of the issues I have are more related to the server itself then the software, although the error messages could be more explanatory, as they are way too generic. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Frederick G.

Computer Systems Engineer

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

2/16/2024

"Still The Best Backup Solution for my Small Business Clients after 20 + Years"

5/5

What do you like best about Arctera Backup Exec?

I've been using Backup Exec since version 8.6 many years ago. I like the fact that it still supports Larger LTO Tape Drives, providing an Air Gap, ensuring I always have a backup that won't be compromised. It's easy to use. The newer versions have maintained the same processes for Data Backup and Recovery as the older versions making the transition to the newer version smooth and providing more features and reliability along the way. I normally used a combination of Large LTO Tape Drives and Large External Data Drives to backup my client's data. This gives me the flexibility to quickly restore 'accidentally deleted' files remotely from the External Hard Drives and the peace of mind I have knowing I can restore my Client's Entire Server from Tape Storage kept offsite in the case of a fire, water leak or natural disaster. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Arctera Backup Exec?

The only downside about the Veritas Backup Exec Software is the new subscription-based licensing model. My clients prefer the annual maintenance renewal and are not excited about this online subscription model. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Andrejs S.

Information System Administrator

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

Originally submitted 3/29/2023

"Very good and very fast IT Technical support."

4/5

What do you like best about Arctera Backup Exec?

It supports deduplication of data. It allows you to write data on tapes. Installation and upgrade process is not complex at all. Very good and very fast IT Technical support.

New feature appeared - Anomaly detection. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Arctera Backup Exec?

Sometimes BackupExec agent overloads Windows OS. I have noticed such problem on one of our domain controllers. Log files by default are being too much generated and you need to tune Windows Registry, to get rid of them.

In Anomaly detection - it is not possible to understand, what exactly has happened. For example - on domain controller. We see notifications, but have no idea, what happens, what has increased, which exactly folder.

System does not support Nutanix HCI. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Vincent C.

IT Manager

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

2/16/2024

"Splendid Use of MyExec."

5/5

What do you like best about Arctera Backup Exec?

Able to trace and monitor the backup job and dashboard serves with good layout. Customer experience has been good help to our problem and troubleshoot whenever we contact the helpdesk. Is easy to implement the job task when configure the settings. And has numbers of feature that can support cloud platform as well. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Arctera Backup Exec?

Limitations is the holding action of the backup job when selected. The backup job is not able to resume the backup action after unclick the hold option. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Binu K.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

2/15/2024

"Backup Exec"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Arctera Backup Exec?

It has a good user friendly interface and a very intuitive design. The scheduling options are highly customizable. Restore of Data from multiple incremental backups are also easy to do. Prompt customer support. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Arctera Backup Exec?

Sometimes the backup gives an error for the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) writer. This is an error which really does not have a perfect solution. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.