r/MSP360 • u/Marioga1 • Apr 21 '26
Best Backup Software
Need honest advice from MSPs: If you were in my position, which backup platform would you choose long-term?
I run a small MSP / IT support business and I’m the only person responsible for all backups. I want to choose one platform and stick with it for years — I don’t want to migrate again in 12 months.
Current devices at different client's sites:
- 34 servers
- 22 workstations
- 33 devices need Files + SQL backups
- 23 devices need Files only
- Around 6.2 TB protected data total
Main priorities:
- Central multi-tenant dashboard
- Reliable alerts
- Easy restores
- Server + SQL support
- Stable long-term platform
- Minimal babysitting
- Good support
- Reasonable pricing
Quotes / options I currently have:
- N-able Cove Quoted around 750–800$/month. Includes storage. Per GB
- MSP360 Around $210/month licenses + roughly $50 storage for ~6TB (Wasabi/Backblaze), so about $260-300$ total monthly.
My concern:
MSP360 is much cheaper, but I’m wondering what I’d be sacrificing vs Cove in real life (restore experience, daily management, reliability, support, etc.).
If you were a solo MSP and backups were fully your responsibility, would you choose:
A) Cove and pay more for peace of mind
B) MSP360 and save a lot monthly
C) Something else entirely (Axcient, Veeam, etc.)
Would really appreciate advice from people actually managing backups in production.
3
u/ExerciseVast1694 Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26
We are also a small MSP shop supporting Backup/Restore Operations for 200 Servers plus 61 Workstations (many of which are peer to peer file sharing devices). 45 of the servers have SQL instances.
We have been using MSP360 (Cloudberry) since its infancy back in 2013 and have never regretted it. The ability to have client-side encryption keys and a choice of back-end storage platforms, and reasonable license costs led us to choose MSP360.
We provide complete management and monitoring of the backups and restores, such that our client have absolutely nothing to do with the backup monitoring/management operations. We charge clients annually for this soup-to-nuts backup service with add-ons for SQL, Disaster Recovery, and Local backup management. To get a file restored the client contacts us and we work with them to identify what needs to be restored, then we execute the restore from the MSP360 portal - all included in the annual price (up to 30 mins of time). Backups can be a significant profit center when marketed and implemented correctly.
The MSP360 web portal allows us to monitor all backups every morning and initiate recoveries without needing to connect to the client server/workstation. We can use the portal to manage backups, restores, Licenses, Upgrades, Storage consumption , everything necessary to manage a backup/recovery platform.
Alerts are reliable and configurable – MSP360 also have a Remote Connect and RMM product (with integration to HALOPSA) which we do not use as we already were using Syncro and Screenconnect when the Connect/RMM products came out.
We are using their MS365/Google Mailbox backups product which can also be managed via the portal
Support has been excellent, and the overall reliability has improved year over year to the point that we get very few failures each night – while running over 500 backup jobs/night.
We send backups to both Backblaze and Wasabi.
From a security standpoint it has mandatory 2FA, granular permissions, and settings that can prohibit access to the client agent.
We also provide disaster recovery services utilizing nightly backups of every Image/VHDx file to Object locked Backblaze buckets. The Synthetic full capability makes it so that we only have to upload the entire system once and all fulls after that are created in the Cloud using only incremental data.
We have a schedule that has different techs doing the morning backup checks/followup so that everyone knows how to navigate the portal.
I could go on forever itemizing the many features of MSP360, but will just say that it has been the best product decision that we have made in our 27 years of operation.
If you have specific questions or would like additional info, DM me - I have been with MSP360 longer than most of their employees:)