Veeam makes sense if you're using vmware and looking to transition to proxmox or run them side by side. Veeam has more moving parts compared to PBS. Another important thing is how to handle big datasets. With PBS you can have one big server with ZFS metadata and special VDEVS on NVME flash which is a must when running garbage collection and pruning jobs. At the end of the day its apples and oranges but if only for proxmox backups PBS is hard to beat. Kudos for doing a hands on comparison instead of just reading marketing bullet points. Keep up the good work!
I never really understood why people use PBS in the first place. Proxmox already got backups build in, I just use that and let it save on a different ZFS. Anything wrong with that?
@ Yes but if you want to run it at scale you want deduplication and changed block tracking. Vzdumps can be compressed but it's not the same. For a homelab I guess vzdumps are fine.
On a tradeshow I talked to a sales rep about veeam. They are working on an appliance to eliminate the windows requirement. Having veeam backup and replication running under Linux would be great.
Yea I've read about that feature and it will be nice to not have to license anouther windows system to use Veeam. Looking forward to seeing how its implemented.
Weird that backup encryption for Proxmox backups isn't available. What does that have to do with the source, isn't this on the processing and storage end of the chain?
I didn't see any technical reason for why encryption can't be done in the docs. I'm guessing Veeam wanted to have encryption support, so it could have been a out of time issue or there was a bug with encryption so they disabled it in this release. Veeam did state that some repositories support encryption, so that would effectively have the backups encrypted at rest, but done at a different level.
Thanks for the video. You did a great job in a short amount of time comparing the 2 softwares. As more companies consider moving away from ESXi and Veeam, it's great to have alternatives, as you said. Veeam can do so much it sometimes feels slow and ponderous. One problem we continue to have is with backing up Red Hat 8.8 and 8.9 on standalone systems using Veeam We cannot seem to get a reliable backup system setup. We've had trouble loading the agents and all kinds of problems. Would love some suggestions on that.
Thank you for the video! Didn't know about Veeam's existence before. I may be the only one but based on what you show here, I can tell the Veeam's User Interface looks really confusing compared to PBS one. At the same time the icons and overall interface makes it look like an app for kids... With all the missing features (like containers and encryption), I would never use that over PBS.
Yea Veeam's interface can be confusing at times for sure. I've gotten used to it, but I'd say PBS is probably simpler. Those icons you mentioned also are available as right click options, too, making them almost redundant. I think part of the issue is Veeam trying to have features for almost every use case, and putting that in a GUI can get cluttered quickly.
Nice comparison - Veeam can make sense for a company already using it, as long as you're not using LXC's of course. One point I'll make is that PBS isn't really limited to one backup at a time - it's one backup at a time on a single host. I run multiple simultaneous backups from different nodes every night. Not sure why the lock on a per-node basis tho - maybe they want to be sure it's not impacting performance? I hope not, since there are other tools like bandwidth management to help with that. It could be Qemu related however, but then Veeam manages it, so ... dunno.
That’s a good point I should have mentioned. More smaller nodes can help speed up pbs if working with a cluster. But if one could backup multiple at a time it would likely have given it to speed victory on all of my backup tests. I don’t see a technical reason at first glance why pbs couldn’t do this as the server can definitely handle multiple jobs from multiple hosts and cream shows proxmox can read backup data from multiple VMs.
I would like to point out Veeam Service Provider Console (VSPC). This will send alerts to that server and let me know the status of backups. This is good for an MSP or an IT company that provides backup monitoring to their customers. We use that at my work. I check 50 different company backups using this. That is is much better than reading emails in a mailbox. Veeam has the win on monitor alerting if you ask me. But I am not able to get my Veeam to backup Proxmox at this time. So, PBS for the win because it just works.
What do you mean by you am not able to get Veeam to backup Proxmox at this time? Are you waiting for the update to be deployed, or did you run into issues with Proxmox?
@@ElectronicsWizardry I could not run a backup job in Veeam that would back up my VMs in Proxmox. I installed Proxmox on an old server. Updated it to the newest version, 8.2.4. After that, I installed a Windows Server 2022 on a VM on Proxmox. On that Windows Server 2022, I installed Veeam Backup and Replication Community Edition 12.2.0.334. I connected Veeam to PVE and created the helper VM. I can test the helper VM, and it is working. I create a VM backup job. When I run it, the helper VM starts, and when it starts to make a backup, it gives this error. "Failed to convert [Not Settable] to UUID." Did you have this error, or do you know how to fix it? Thank you, and you make great videos.
Both, I guess. I think backing up your linux vms and containers with PBS is fine. For Windows-vms I'd use Veeam. In my testing I had a problem restoring a windows vm. The restore went through but the vm could'nt boot (according to diskpart it didn't find the hard drive). I opened a case with Veeam, currently they are investigating. Have you tried restoring a windows vm and did it work? Didn't try linux vm yet.
I haven't tested this functionality, but it should be possible according to their docs. I can see some extra configuration being needed to get the most after a migration(like using virtio disks), just like with a manual migration.
I hope to see s3 or better cloud storage support in pbs, but based off my knowledge of how it works it might not be designed for that and difficult to add. Pbs chunk system can be pretty io intensive. I’d guess storing those chunks of s3 storage directly might be pricey with the high amounts of io the verify, and prune jobs require. Combined with many cloud providers charging for io operations I’d guess veeam be better for cloud sync.
Yea that might not have been the best way to show it. There was more tabs in hyper v so I shows each tab for a equal amount of time instead of showing the similar tabs at the same time and then showing blank for proxmox when there is a missing tab.
Some of the reasons to go Veeam over Proxmox are: If your using other workloads(hyper-y, exsi, metal servers), syncing backups to cloud storage works much better on Veeam typically, it can be faster at backing up multiple VMs at once, and Veeams data storage may be better depending on your IO + space used needs. If your a mostly proxmox environment I'd probably look at PBS first.
2:17 - Oh. Well I guess I'll stop watching here then. I only have 2 VMs, vs about 20 containers. And neither of those need that level of backing up anyway (and one of them has just 2 files we need to backup at all)
Veeam makes sense if you're using vmware and looking to transition to proxmox or run them side by side. Veeam has more moving parts compared to PBS. Another important thing is how to handle big datasets. With PBS you can have one big server with ZFS metadata and special VDEVS on NVME flash which is a must when running garbage collection and pruning jobs. At the end of the day its apples and oranges but if only for proxmox backups PBS is hard to beat.
Kudos for doing a hands on comparison instead of just reading marketing bullet points. Keep up the good work!
I never really understood why people use PBS in the first place. Proxmox already got backups build in, I just use that and let it save on a different ZFS. Anything wrong with that?
@ Yes but if you want to run it at scale you want deduplication and changed block tracking. Vzdumps can be compressed but it's not the same. For a homelab I guess vzdumps are fine.
Thanks for the review. This will help sell Proxmox as a hypervisor at work
Awesome, thank you for your insights. Now, I can back up my lab to S3 just in case. PBS does not Support S3 currently.
Thank you very much for the succinct manner in which you did the overview of Veeam's backup software. Extremely helpful.
On a tradeshow I talked to a sales rep about veeam. They are working on an appliance to eliminate the windows requirement. Having veeam backup and replication running under Linux would be great.
Yea I've read about that feature and it will be nice to not have to license anouther windows system to use Veeam. Looking forward to seeing how its implemented.
Weird that backup encryption for Proxmox backups isn't available.
What does that have to do with the source, isn't this on the processing and storage end of the chain?
I didn't see any technical reason for why encryption can't be done in the docs. I'm guessing Veeam wanted to have encryption support, so it could have been a out of time issue or there was a bug with encryption so they disabled it in this release.
Veeam did state that some repositories support encryption, so that would effectively have the backups encrypted at rest, but done at a different level.
Thanks for the video. You did a great job in a short amount of time comparing the 2 softwares. As more companies consider moving away from ESXi and Veeam, it's great to have alternatives, as you said. Veeam can do so much it sometimes feels slow and ponderous. One problem we continue to have is with backing up Red Hat 8.8 and 8.9 on standalone systems using Veeam We cannot seem to get a reliable backup system setup. We've had trouble loading the agents and all kinds of problems. Would love some suggestions on that.
You're my new favorite tech man.
Thank you for the video! Didn't know about Veeam's existence before. I may be the only one but based on what you show here, I can tell the Veeam's User Interface looks really confusing compared to PBS one. At the same time the icons and overall interface makes it look like an app for kids...
With all the missing features (like containers and encryption), I would never use that over PBS.
Yea Veeam's interface can be confusing at times for sure. I've gotten used to it, but I'd say PBS is probably simpler. Those icons you mentioned also are available as right click options, too, making them almost redundant. I think part of the issue is Veeam trying to have features for almost every use case, and putting that in a GUI can get cluttered quickly.
What options do I have if I have a single server with LXC containers without any VM?
Thanks for this ! Awesome video !
Nice comparison - Veeam can make sense for a company already using it, as long as you're not using LXC's of course. One point I'll make is that PBS isn't really limited to one backup at a time - it's one backup at a time on a single host. I run multiple simultaneous backups from different nodes every night. Not sure why the lock on a per-node basis tho - maybe they want to be sure it's not impacting performance? I hope not, since there are other tools like bandwidth management to help with that. It could be Qemu related however, but then Veeam manages it, so ... dunno.
That’s a good point I should have mentioned. More smaller nodes can help speed up pbs if working with a cluster. But if one could backup multiple at a time it would likely have given it to speed victory on all of my backup tests. I don’t see a technical reason at first glance why pbs couldn’t do this as the server can definitely handle multiple jobs from multiple hosts and cream shows proxmox can read backup data from multiple VMs.
Amazing video! Thanks for this info.
I would like to point out Veeam Service Provider Console (VSPC). This will send alerts to that server and let me know the status of backups. This is good for an MSP or an IT company that provides backup monitoring to their customers. We use that at my work. I check 50 different company backups using this. That is is much better than reading emails in a mailbox. Veeam has the win on monitor alerting if you ask me. But I am not able to get my Veeam to backup Proxmox at this time. So, PBS for the win because it just works.
What do you mean by you am not able to get Veeam to backup Proxmox at this time? Are you waiting for the update to be deployed, or did you run into issues with Proxmox?
@@ElectronicsWizardry I could not run a backup job in Veeam that would back up my VMs in Proxmox. I installed Proxmox on an old server. Updated it to the newest version, 8.2.4. After that, I installed a Windows Server 2022 on a VM on Proxmox. On that Windows Server 2022, I installed Veeam Backup and Replication Community Edition 12.2.0.334. I connected Veeam to PVE and created the helper VM. I can test the helper VM, and it is working. I create a VM backup job. When I run it, the helper VM starts, and when it starts to make a backup, it gives this error. "Failed to convert [Not Settable] to UUID." Did you have this error, or do you know how to fix it? Thank you, and you make great videos.
Both, I guess. I think backing up your linux vms and containers with PBS is fine. For Windows-vms I'd use Veeam. In my testing I had a problem restoring a windows vm. The restore went through but the vm could'nt boot (according to diskpart it didn't find the hard drive). I opened a case with Veeam, currently they are investigating. Have you tried restoring a windows vm and did it work? Didn't try linux vm yet.
Awesome job on reporting these new developments btw!
greats videos
can you do a backup on vmware and restore to proxmox? or replication :)
I haven't tested this functionality, but it should be possible according to their docs. I can see some extra configuration being needed to get the most after a migration(like using virtio disks), just like with a manual migration.
what I am really missing from pbs is the chance to easy backup offsite to an s3 storage :(
I hope to see s3 or better cloud storage support in pbs, but based off my knowledge of how it works it might not be designed for that and difficult to add. Pbs chunk system can be pretty io intensive. I’d guess storing those chunks of s3 storage directly might be pricey with the high amounts of io the verify, and prune jobs require. Combined with many cloud providers charging for io operations I’d guess veeam be better for cloud sync.
U should tune your video. On 2:56 and around there are no comparable screenshots (different tabs)...
Yea that might not have been the best way to show it. There was more tabs in hyper v so I shows each tab for a equal amount of time instead of showing the similar tabs at the same time and then showing blank for proxmox when there is a missing tab.
Why use Veeam instead of PBS?
Some of the reasons to go Veeam over Proxmox are: If your using other workloads(hyper-y, exsi, metal servers), syncing backups to cloud storage works much better on Veeam typically, it can be faster at backing up multiple VMs at once, and Veeams data storage may be better depending on your IO + space used needs.
If your a mostly proxmox environment I'd probably look at PBS first.
"windows host" is a show stopper for me.
2:17 - Oh. Well I guess I'll stop watching here then. I only have 2 VMs, vs about 20 containers. And neither of those need that level of backing up anyway (and one of them has just 2 files we need to backup at all)
I don't trust an IT pro if he doesn't look and sound like you. A suave, Henry Cavill type of person knows nothing.