Synology DiskStation vs. Veeam Data Platform

Synology DiskStation would be well suited for a smaller organization of under 100 employees where you have a lot of collaborating between teams and clients. If you have to have a common space to save documents and project files so both employees and clients can access or upload if needed, this product is perfect! You can create links for clients to access or upload files, while you and your coworkers have a shared collaboration space. If you have a large team, over 100 I would not recommend this product. For us, it seemed to work really well because there were about 20 of us using it, but it is hard for me to imagine it working well for a group that is 5x our size. I don't know, maybe it would still work really well. If you had to know exactly when something was updated and have real times updates on things being added, I would also not recommend this product.

Incentivized

Veeam Data Platform is best suited in environments that fall under its compatible applications, which it backs up. Any sized business could benefit. The ease of use and metrics are a breeze and the learning curve is low. However, if you're using hypervisors, products that have no support by Veeam Data Platform, then clearly wouldn't be a great fit. Their workaround for this by using OS level backups for baremetal deployments but increases the risk of failure when doing restores.

Incentivized

• File serving for Windows PC's is outstanding in terms of compatibility and performance and reliability
• The cloud storage service is like our own private dropbox and very helpful
• The backup for business make backup a no brainer with backup to the box and hyperbackup providing a off-site cloud backup option to Synology Cloud or a plethora of other options

Incentivized

• Veeam stands out among backup solutions because of its ability to work with almost any storage type. For example, only a small portion of backup solutions will support catalyst stores, Veeam does.
• Veeam is extremely flexible when it comes to setting it up. I had a network recently that limited ethernet connectivity between the Veeam VM and the backup repository and Veeam handled it easily.
• Day-to-day use of Veeam is very simple. It is easy to train our technicians to use it proficiently in a very short amount of time.
• Our Veeam VMs don't have issues very often, but the one or two times I have called for support, they answered right away, and the technicians assisting us were knowledgeable about their products.

Incentivized

• the focus of synology is on SMB users, we have a 1.3PB Synology NAS unit that needs higher-end DiskStation software to handle the 95 x 16TB drives we have
• in summary, Synology NAS software doesn't handle enterprise customer needs
• syncing of files with android and IOS devices, in particular with DSM 7, the Synology Cloud sync software doesn't work (the staff are working on a release in the coming months). But syncing files from mobile devices to the Synology NAS is a key reason 2 of our Synology NAS units were purchased, and without the syncing we are limited

Incentivized

• It should recommend the most secure method of backup methods to ensure immutability.
• It should maximize SnapMirror technology when using a NetApp as a backup target to replicate backups to CVO targets.
• It should provide a centralized dashboard for backing up all PaaS services in Azure.

Incentivized

It provides us with great ROI compared with other solutions. It is also a versatile product, having NAS and SAN product lines depending on the business requirement. Furthermore, the implementation of dual controller lines would allow us to consider it for more critical applications to supplement the more enterprise-level SAN solution. It also is a wonderful backup solution, having all the applications available after purchase of the appliance without the further need to purchase additional software or licensing.

Incentivized

The platform has consistently delivered strong performance, reliability, and innovative features that align well with our data protection needs. Its robust capabilities in backup, recovery, and cloud integration have significantly improved our operational efficiency and disaster recovery planning. The only reason for not giving a full 10 would be our ongoing evaluation of emerging technologies and solutions to ensure we are maximizing our IT investments. Overall, Veeam Data Platform has proven to be an invaluable asset to our organization.

Incentivized

The Synology DiskStation is easy to set up and manage. The interface is clean and features are well documented. These units are reliable and can be set up to do scheduled integrity checks so failures can be mitigated before they halt business operations. The available packages for expanded roles makes these devices versatile.

Incentivized

If you are familiar with most Windows software UIs, there should be no issue learning Veeam. Even better if you're already familiar with backup strategies, &c., since all of that is integrated and possible. I doubt my grandmother could use it, but she's not the target audience. If you've been in IT for a bit, this is very usable.

Incentivized

The Veeam Backup & Replication solution is up and running every time you need it as it was planned. In more than 3 years that we have been using the product every night, it might have failed or presented an error once or twice, so the availability percentage is almost at 100%.

Incentivized

Veeam does a good job with backing up our servers in a timely manner. We are still at the beginning of our Veeam use and are pleased with the speed at which we can access the system as well as the backups and restore points. Veeam is definitely superior to our previous backup system in terms of speed and accessibility

Incentivized

Support is pretty solid. There is good documentation and the help articles inside the interface provide you answers to common questions and instructions for many scenarios that you may encounter. I have not needed to speak with support very often and my experiences have been good overall with their support team.

Incentivized

The support team has never asked me to jump through silly hoops or waste time on pointless exercises. They seem to truly have a handle on what may be wrong. In fact, when we were having trouble getting our license renewal setup (because of yet another license migration at Veeam) a support incident got us connected to the right people to get our renewal done in time.

Incentivized

I rated the in-person training an 8 because it was generally effective and provided a solid foundation for understanding the Veeam Data Platform. The instructors were knowledgeable and engaged, making the sessions interactive. However, I felt that some topics could have been covered in more depth, and additional hands-on exercises would have further reinforced the learning experience. Overall, it was a positive training session that adequately prepared attendees for using the product, but there's room for improvement.

Incentivized

I gave it a rating of 7 because, although the online training offered valuable content and covered the essential aspects of the Veeam Data Platform, it lacked interactivity and opportunities for direct engagement with instructors. This made it challenging to ask questions or delve deeper into specific topics. Additionally, some sections felt a bit rushed, which could hinder a comprehensive understanding of more complex features. Overall, while the training was useful, improvements in interactivity and pacing could elevate the experience significantly.

Incentivized

When deploying Veeam, be sure you have your environment right-sized. While it is not a big deal to increase capacity later, it will make a difference if you are trying to run Veeam on instances/VMs that are not appropriately sized on CPU and Memory requirements.

Incentivized

Synology NAS replaced any cloud storage for way cheaper, more controlled and expansible. Qnap is the second best and was also an option but back then it had less functionalities. It does the backup just as Synology DiskStation but the support was better on the Synology DiskStation. That and the fact the price and modules for physical expansion are available, Synology DiskStation became my choice

Commvault is a standard backup platform for Enterprise backups, but we have no need for its extensive client abilities or the staff for the vast infrastructure that is required to use it. Cohesity is a truly fantastic system, but it is too far for larger companies than the one that I work for. Its cost also makes it prohibitive for SME's like us. Norton Backup was so long ago, I don't know if it even exists. It was difficult to use, had very slow recovery times, and I don't miss it at all.

Incentivized

In terms of scalability for our company, Veeam was able to cover our backup needs with ease. They have options for even more individualized backup if we were to need them; i.e. if a specific workstation needs its own independent backup. We have not used these resources yet, but I am confident they will be beneficial to our company in the near future.

Incentivized

• DiskStation has provided an accessible storage solution to our developers for local backup that they can control. No need to contact IT to do anything. This has been a win for IT and our users.
• DiskStation provides good support in a mixed PC/Mac environment, eliminating the need for multiple solutions. It can act as a file share for both platforms, and as a result, provides ease of access, regardless of what a user is using for their OS.
• While DiskStation provides quotas per user, I'd also like the ability to set policies - so that business-critical data is getting backed up to Enterprise-focused storage, and not to our local DiskStation. This is partly a people problem but could be addressed by enabling policies that disable code from being stored.

Incentivized

• When Veeam is running well, I don't need to babysit it at all; I just read the email reports and am done.
• When it doesn't work, Veeam consumes entire days getting everything working again.
• Veeam has significantly improved how we test new software by enabling easy duplication of existing resources to different platforms.

Incentivized