One question we get a lot is, "what do you mean by unlimited storage in the cloud?" Well, the short answer is, we mean unlimited storage in the cloud, as long as you meet a few qualifications.
The first qualification is that the only data eligible for our unlimited plan is data that is stored on an internal hard drive. No USB drives, no network shares, no SAN devices, no NAS devices (Including iSCSI mounts). The one exception to this is if you're imaging a volume with DR Server, you can store those images on whatever external or network storage you want, so long as you are only backing up those images from that external storage device. This includes any ShadowProtect images from systems that are not licensed through Servosity.
The second qualification is, while you can store as much data in the cloud as you want, we include 1 year of retention in the plan. Your backup job can be configured to keep deleted items for up to 1 year in the cloud after which point those files which were deleted from the backup source will be removed from the cloud as well. Any data that is kept in the backup source will never be deleted from the cloud.
The third qualification is that we won't backup a few types of files with a Servosity Standard or Pro account. These include virtual hard disk files, and backup images from other providers. Servosity Unlimited File Backup is intended to protect a selection of files on a single system, not create a cloud copy of full disk images. If you want to backup entire volumes, you'll need to use a DR Desktop or DR Server account with us, or pay NAS pricing to backup images or local backups from another provider.
The final qualification is that you can only run backups of a single server per Unlimited account. While the software may function while logged into the same account on multiple servers, that backup account is only valid for a single server.
If you don't qualify for our unlimited plans for either reason, read on, because we've still got a solution for you!
For customers who need to backup data from an external source (USB, NAS, SAN, Network Share), you can still use our Servosity Professional software, but you'll need to use our NAS plan. You can contact our sales team for more information, but we have a very competitive per-TB rate where you'll only pay for what you use each month. This plan also includes unlimited retention, so you can keep deleted files in our cloud forever if you want.
If you need retention beyond 1 year, that's no problem either! For an additional monthly charge, you can add additional years to your retention plan. This includes inactive backup sets, if a backup set isn't running, it's not removing old data, so you would need to pay for additional retention if you want to keep an old backup set in the cloud. You can contact our sales team for more pricing and details.
Here's some examples of supported usage of our unlimited plans:
- Backing up 10TB of files from 3 internal 4TB drives
- Backing up 6TB of DR Server (ShadowProtect Images) stored on USB drive or NAS
- Keeping copies of deleted files in the cloud for 1 year
- Syncing files from 23 desktops onto a shared folder on a servers internal 8TB drive and backing that up
And here's a few examples of usage that would require NAS pricing:
- Backing up 10GB of data from 3 different computers using a single backup account
- Backing up DR server images, plus a shared folder of user data from a NAS
- Backing up an external USB drive that was added to a server because it ran out of storage space
- Backing up 2 or more servers with the same backup account, regardless of data size
- Backing up virtual hard disks, volume images, or local backups created with another backup provider
Finally here are 2 examples of when you'd need to purchase additional retention:
- If you need to keep copies of any deleted files for more than 1 year
- Keeping copies of older backup sets that are no longer running
If you still have any questions or specific use cases you'd like to run by us, feel free to contact sales at 1-800-429-0500 or sales@servosity.com.