Will Veeam Community Edition do what I want

[perdrix]

I'm looking for a single backup solution for all my computers.

Currently I'm using Macrium Reflect Free to take FULL images of the six Windows machines (one is dual boot XP/W10) , backup is to Ubuntu Linux server running Samba with a 22TB RAID5 shared drive.

I also take images to tape (LTO-4) over iSCSI, but the boot-able SW I used to use won't work with my latest machine as it doesn't support the NIC - I used to like brand-X, but I've fallen out of love with them over the last 10 years or so with their buggy bloat-ware.

I can (sort of) live with loosing the 22TB share as it's only use to store music, movies and backups. It can be re-created if necessary (though its a pain - esp. the music). Sadly I can't afford LTO-8 drive/tapes.

Requirements:

MUST be able to do a bare metal restore of any machine at any time.
Able to restore to different (replacement) hardware for migration or to handle problem like a dead motherboard!
LTO tape support over iSCSI (or other means) - maybe via backup server (T-T-D)?
Would be good to be able to do bare metal backups too!
Free or cheap

Thanks
David

[HannesK]

Hello,
and welcome to the forums

It sounds that you are only talking about physical machines. And I count 7 machines. The community Edition has 10 machines / instances included. That would match.

- bare metal restore is possible if backup works (not for your XP machine and for Linux please check whether you meet the requirements)
- restore to different hardware is possible
- for tape, we don't care about the protocol. If it has a Windows driver, then it is supported (I use iSCSI tape in my lab)
- tape backups go to disk first. B2D2T

So community edition might be good enough for you. Veeam Backup Starter is also very cheap, if you need support.

Both Community and Starter editions provide the Standard Edition functionality for a maximum of 10 and 20 instances respectively. See comparison

Best regards,
Hannes

[perdrix]

So, to clarify support for the Windows and Linux boxes, do I also need the "Agent for Microsoft Windows", and "Agent for Linux", or are they part of the Community Edition? Or would just having the two "Agent for ..." meet my needs?

Trying to understand how the various "bits" fit together ...

Thanks, David

[DGrinev]

Hi David,

The agents contained in the package with Veeam B&R.
You can deploy and manage them within the Veeam B&R Console.

Without the Veeam B&R Community Edition, you can get only a free version of Agents. Thanks!

[Egor Yakovlev]

Actually link is not outdated, however it reflects "Edition differences" way, rather than "Product purchase type" way (feature-per-edition still remain the same).
Check out this one additionally: https://www.veeam.com/backup-solution-pricing.html (scroll down to capabilities).
Comparing Community vs Starter vs Essentials you want to compare Community Edition feature set(Community version) vs Standard Edition feature set(Starter version) vs Enterprise Plus feature set(Essentials version).
/Cheers!