MSP360 Backup: Introducing Block-Level Backup for Files of Any Size

MSP360 Backup is a powerful program that automates backup and restore processes to Amazon S3, Windows Azure, Google and other cloud storages. MSP360 Backup is perfect for small and mid-sized businesses looking for simple and reliable online backup solution.

As always we are adding features to make it easier for our customers to use the functionality and the block-level backup has always been one of the sought after features. With the MSP360 Backup release 2.3 we have added the functionality that would back up only the modified blocks of the files to the cloud storage making the overall backup process faster and more efficient.  This feature had one serious limitation -you could only take advantage of it for files larger than 5GB.

With the new release v2.4 we are introducing block-level backup option for the files of any size. Moreover this feature comes with the ability to do encryption, compression and versioning which was also a limitation of the previous release.

Block-level backup is useful if you want to backup large files such as SQL Server Backup files, MS Exchange Database, Outlook PST files and virtual machine images.

To use block-level backup for all size of files you should choose the Advanced Mode in the Backup Wizard and check Use block level backup checkbox.

Our tests show that when copying a VMware virtual machine images of ~2GB, the changed portion is only  10MB. It takes only 2.5 minutes to upload the delta.

Here is a copy of our backup status report:

Product version:	2.4.0.31
Computer:	CBL-MAIN-HOST
Bucket:
Duration:	00:02:29
Files scanned:	45
Data scanned:	20.72 GBytes
Files to backup:	1
Total file size:	1.85 GBytes
Data to backup (differential):	10.25 MBytes
Files copied:	1
Data copied:	10.25 MBytes

Note: as block-level backup is a part of the Advanced Mode you can't restore the files using other cloud storage clients and you have to stick to MSP360 Tools. Once Amazon S3 team removes the 5GB limit from the API you will be able to take full advantage of the block-level backup in Simple Mode too.

Special note to our customers using MSP360 Managed Backup Service: we are going to add block-level backup functionality to the service this week.

As always we would be happy to hear your feedback and you are welcome to post a comment.

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