Ready to Trade In Free Version But Need Advice

[pjamme]

OK,
I have been using the free version of Veeam for several years to backup my four VMWare servers to a USB disk. I would like to advance my system to a paid version of Veeam (more on that later).
I am looking for a new disk to disk for my Backup Exec 15 installation, currently using an HP MSA20 (SATA hard drives connected to a W2K8 R2 server via Ultra SCSI 320) to do D2D through a share on another server. My BE server is 2012 R2 and doesn't like SCSI.
So here are my questions:
1. Do I go with Direct Attached Storage to the BE server and run Veeam on it also? I do have the VMWare option in BE15 but prefer Veeam. Current Veeam 8.0 Free Backup & Recovery is on a Windows 7 Enterprise workstation with a 2TB USB external disk. Or do I use a SAN or a NAS?
2. Depending on which type of D2D is recommended, can I keep it under $10,000 and have 10TB or more storage? And what model is your recommendation, preferably from experience?
3. What version of Veeam should i consider, and should i wait for 9.0?

Thanks in advance,

[skrause]

I will give my advice in reverse order of your questions:

3. Since it doesn't sound like you need WAN acceleration or backup from Storage Snapshots, there is no reason to go with a license above B&R Enterprise and you would probably be just fine with B&R Standard. If you have 6 or less CPU sockets you might look into Backup Essentials. There is really no reason to wait for v9, if you purchase now you will be entitled to a free update to v9 when it is released since you will be under maintenance for a year from the time of purchase.
2. You can easily get 10TB of disk for under $10,000 depending upon what vendor/type of storage you want (SAN or NAS).
1. While you probably could use the same server to serve as a file repository for Veeam and BE, it might get dicey if they both try to grab resources at the same time. Veeam can use pretty much any windows file server (or CIFS share on a NAS) as a repository. I heard quite a number of people recommend using a Synology NAS as a repository for Veeam. They have models that would fit your 10TB usable/sub-10K budget pretty easily.

[Gostev]

Steve, noted that you are listing Enterprise Plus features in your response to question 3, but incorrectly labeling them as Enterprise. I do recommend at least Enterprise, but I also wanted to note that Enterprise Plus offers much more functionality than the 2 features you have listed.

1. Yes, DAS is by far the best choice.

2. Existing physical server with Windows or Linux with a bunch of internal disks is the most economical choice that will allow you to keep costs even under $1000 for 10TB of disk.

3. If you are asking v8 vs. v9, then it does not matter. If you buy and install v8 now, you will get a free upgrade to v9 - and it is a simple in-place upgrade in less than 5 minutes.

Thanks!

[pjamme]

Thanks
Guys,
Sorry for the delay, getting ready for yet another Domain Migration. So been crazy here.
Wrote a PO request for an HP SB D2600 with 2TB SAS disks and controller yesterday at recommendation of my CDW Rep. So that part is underway.
That said, whose sockets are the ones that count for determing Veeam cost? VMWare servers or ESXi Server containing them. Kinda confused on that part.

[alanbolte]

Sockets are on the ESXi hosts you will be backing up. So if you have two ESXi hosts with two sockets each at your main site (4 sockets total), and the same at your DR site (where there are 4 sockets but nothing to back up), then the total sockets to purchase is 4.

[pjamme]

OK thanks. so with hyperthreading enabled and my ESXi server has four sockets giving me eight sockets, I will pay for eight? Or is it physical sockets and I pay for four?

[dellock6]

Physical sockets, not cores. So yes you need 4 licenses.

[alanbolte]

Or possibly he means it's 1 socket and 4 cores...