Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE

[Arthur]

Although Veeam Endpoint Backup isn't due to be released until early next year, it looks like a great way to ensure that your Windows PCs are backed up (especially for free!).

 

www.veeam.com/blog/announcing-veeam-endpoint-backup-free.html

 

We’ve been very clear about our vision for the Modern Data Center recently: it has key attributes such as being highly virtualized, having modern storage and is ready for a cloud strategy. But what about systems that have data on them that aren’t part of the data center? What about endpoints? Most companies use PCs or laptops for their end users and those devices have data on it that may need to be protected.

 

To help address this need, we just announced a new product via a press release at VeeamON 2014 today. We are happy to introduce Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE!

 

Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE is Veeam’s new backup solution for Windows-based computers (desktops & laptops) running Windows 7 and higher as well as Windows Server 2008 and higher. It is a standalone product and is not part of Veeam Backup & Replication nor the Veeam Availability Suite. This is clearly big news, and you may have a number of questions on what this new product is. Here are some FAQ on this announcement:

 

What is it?

Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE is a product that allows you to backup your Windows-based computers to an internal or external hard drive, a NAS share or a Veeam Backup Repository. It writes the backups in VBK format, which is the same format as Veeam Backup & Replication. With this product, you will be able to protect files, volumes or your entire computer based on your own schedule or at logon or logoff. The figure below shows the backup job control panel and it's activity:

 

 

The possibilities to recover range from simple files (overwrite or keep the original files), volume restore or a bare metal recovery.

 

 

Additionally, Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE will have great features such as pausing the backup when the system is busy (automatically, with the optional Backup I/O Control selected), automatic update notifications, auto-recognition of the external hard drive that has your backups stored and much more.

 

When creating recovery boot media, you will also automatically receive additional tools such as checking the system memory, fix startup sequences and a unique administrator password reset.

 

And all of this, as the name states, will be available for free!

 

When will it be available?

The first beta of Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE will be released in November and the GA (generally available) date is targeted early 2015. You can sign up for the beta here: http://go.veeam.com/endpoint.

 

Does free mean no support?

Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE will be supported through Veeam’s free product support policy. This means that Veeam will attempt to provide support for users of Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE but does not provide response goals or response guarantees for this service.

[penfold]

Could also be used for those physical servers too meaning we could drop backup exec (except for the tape job)?

[Steve21]

Could also be used for those physical servers too meaning we could drop backup exec (except for the tape job)?

 

Looks like it which would be cool

as well as Windows Server 2008 and higher

 

Steve

[penfold]

@Steve21 - that was the way I read it, which would be good for us to be able to move all our backups towards a single solution. Am I right in thinking you could you run this onto a networked drive and then let Veeam do a file to tape to keep the Tape jobs all running through the existing Veeam setup?

[synaesthesia]

Ooooh that's interesting. Anyone wanna buy a load of BackupAssist licenses?

[bossman]

Hmm! must be a catch somewhere along the line me thinks?

 

You don't get "out for nowt" nowadays!

 

Am I just being too realistic here?

[Arthur]

Hmm! must be a catch somewhere along the line me thinks?

I suppose the catch is that the backups are saved in a proprietary format so you have to use Veeam's software to restore your files.

[DMcCoy]

I tried the free HV version of Veeam after hearing so many good things about it here. I hated it.

[m25man]

Clearly this puts another nail in coffin of Symantec.. whom interestingly announce that they were splitting up their software company into different groups separating security products from the rest?

Endpoint protection from Veeam will certainly put an end to my use of BExec for Physical boxes.

 

I too will admit though the Veeamzip Free solution for Hyper-v is pants and can in no way be compared to the full products which are simply lifesavers.

 

If you have a Veeam Server also consider installing a Highpoint USB 3.0 PCIe HBA card as this is a superb way to round off your backup solution.

[Arthur]

The beta version of Veeam Endpoint Backup is now available for anyone to download.

 

http://go.veeam.com/endpoint

 

[tmcd35]

Can this do Disk2Disk daily incremental backups without overwriting the contents of previous backups, so you get a version history of changed files over time? If it can then I may drop Yosemite Backup in favour of this...

 

If it can manage disk based backups to the required level, I'd actually be willing to look at a paid for version/annual subscription for support when the **** hits the fan.

[Arthur]

Can this do Disk2Disk daily incremental backups without overwriting the contents of previous backups

Yes. Here are some screenshots I took after setting up a backup job for the system drive on my home PC.

 

 

 

 

[Arthur]

Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE - Release Candidate

 

New features

New Veeam Endpoint Backup features include:

 

• Backup directly into Veeam backup repositories.
  
• Full support for Bitlocker drive encryption on backup and restore.
  
• Ability to control power state of the computer after daily backup.
  
• "When backup target is connected" event (former "On storage attach" event) now supports both USB drives and remote storage, and triggers when you connect to a network from which your remote backup target is reachable.
  
• Metered internet connections are now detected and not used to perform backup to remote targets.
  
• More smart way of handling retries (both in scheduler and UI).
  
• Customizable backup destination folder.
  
• Support for rotated USB drives.
  
• Backup is automatically prevented from starting when a device is running off battery and battery level is less than 20%
  
• Slightly improved backup performance (local data movers "talk" over shared memory, as opposed to network sockets)
  
• Recovery Media enhancement (virtual keyboard w/multi-language layout support, USB 3.0 devices support)
  
• New shiny setup!
  

Important notes

• Because of significant changes in both configuration and backup formats, we cannot provide backward compatibility for backups, or an in-place upgrade from BETA code. Please, remove Veeam Endpoint Backup BETA using Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs first before installing this RC build.
  
• For the same reasons, we may not be able to provide the upgrade to RTM build, and/or ability to restore from RC backups in RTM build. So please, do not assume that such compatibility will be available.
  

Known issues

• Waking up a computer for a daily backup broke just before the RC build (we will fix this by RTM).
  

[Arthur]

Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE is here!

 

A couple of months ago, we announced a new solution called Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE. In December, we released the beta version of this software to the world. The interest in this beta software was overwhelming and we had a huge amount of testers, with more than 22,000 registered users and 14,000+ beta downloads of our beta.

 

Today, we are proud to announce the GA (general availability) of Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE!

[techie08]

Does this mean i can get rid of DPM 2012 and use this to backup student and staff files (Veeam only backups the C;drive for file servers), SQL databases and my Physical DC?

[win]

I believe the free version only lets you backup to a local drive / tape.

 

You have to buy the full version to schedule a backup to a network location.

[techie08]

I believe the free version only lets you backup to a local drive / tape.

 

You have to buy the full version to schedule a backup to a network location.

 

I thought Veeam Endpoint Backup Free was free? Is there a paid versions also then?

[win]

Sorry, i was referring to the server version. No idea about the Endpoint Backup

[pete]

Endpoint backup lets you save to a network location.

 

There's a Reddit thread here with people from Veeam answering questions: Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE Now Available : sysadmin

[nicholab]

Does anyone know if Veeam Endpoint Backup uses synthetic backup? We have a server that is taking far too long to backup so I am wondering if I could use synthetic backups?

[pete]

Forever-forward incrementals is the default, with full backups as an option.

[Arthur]

v1.5 is out.

 

Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE 1.5

 

What’s new?

As I said before, we are listening to your feedback very attentively, so don’t be surprised when you find your feature in the list below.

 

Email notifications

This has probably been the most-requested feature since the initial release of Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE last year, and we’re very proud to announce that it’s finally ready to make its debut. You will agree that manual configuration is boring, so with version 1.5 you will be able set the email notifications by only typing in your email address (maybe password, if your SMTP server requires authentication) and get your backup history sent directly to your mailbox. Of course, for custom setups, we leave an option to specify SMTP settings manually.

 

Additional scheduling options

Our scheduler was already very powerful, and almost everything was possible when you worked with the Backup no more often than… option. However, we want to keep making things easier for you, so starting from the new version you will be able to use a weekly schedule in a more robust way by setting your backup job to run on weekdays only or on specific days of the week. Additional care may be necessary when your computer was inactive due to hibernation or being shut down - now you can set the scheduled backup to be created immediately after your computer is awaken or powered on.

 

Another defense against CryptoLocker

Believe me, CryptoLocker is one of those types of malware (ransomware) that you’d never want to get in touch with. The one and only solution so far is to perform a complete restore from the backup.

How about the fact that your backup files can be encrypted too? Of course, while using a Veeam Backup & Replication repository or a shared folder as a destination, you can potentially solve this issue by setting up separate backup accounts and limiting end user access to repositories, but local targets like USB devices remain unprotected.

 

With Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE 1.5 you have an option to automatically eject your USB device after backup has completed. I blogged previously about CryptoLocker and Veeam Endpoint Backup.

 

Customizable destination for standalone full backups

A standalone backup is a great way of creating a backup that never expires and can be stored as an image on any media of your choice. Previously, Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE kept such backups at the location defined in your backup job, but today you can just click the tray option “Backup to another location” and set the desired custom path. This option is also supported when starting standalone full backup through the command line.

 

And much, much more…

As usual, there are more features behind the curtain. Version 1.5 has a few noticeable user interface (UI) enhancements such as a job’s progress being shown in the taskbar, the Control Panel’s backup chart can be switched from size to time by right-clicking the chart, and the Wi-Fi network signal being displayed while booted using the Veeam Recovery Media. And speaking of recovery – resize can be performed in gigabytes now, so you won’t need a calculator to count how many megabytes you need to allocate for your terabyte volume.

 

There are several changes in technical support logic as well. First, you have to agree with application logs being collected and sent to our side. Second, Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE will perform an up-to-date check and ask you to upgrade if you’re running an old version prior to opening a support case.

 

We’re also giving the batteries for your mobile devices, such as laptops and tablets, some extra attention with this release. In addition to our existing logic that postpones backup jobs when a device’s battery level falls below 20%, Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE now detects when your device is not connected to a charger and suspends the backup job in attempt to reduce power consumption and save battery life.

 

In this version, we also improved the overall performance of file-level backup and added the experimental feature to skip bad blocks during the backup. The latter is not available by default, however, if you notice backups are failing due to disk corruption, you can request this solution from the support team.