Question : Problem: Zenith Infotech Bare Metal Restore

Our consultant has recommended a unit from Zenith Infotech that sounds too good to be true.  I was wondering if anyone has experience with this.  Basically it's a separate unit that does a full backup of multiple servers, then every 15 minutes (or time period you set) it does a granular backup.  Supposedly you can access the machine on a file level to do any type of restoration.  But the best part is that if you have a crash you can use the machine as a virtual server until you get a new server up and running, all while it is still doing its backups of both the downed server as its being used on the new device and any other server that it's still monitoring.  This just sounds like too good a device to be true, especially at the price level, which I think will be around $5K to handle two servers.

Anyone experience one of these or have another manufacturer that does something like this?

Answer : Problem: Zenith Infotech Bare Metal Restore

Here's what I would suggest. Use Double Take, which is a internationally recognized solution with LOTS big clients - i don't work for them. i am a user.

Double Take is about $2500 per installation, not cheap, but you can get real time recovery.

There are 2 solutions. Cheap and expensive.
1. Cheap
a. for SQL server, set up another SQL server and run SQL replication (transactional)
b. for file server, I use a $40 tool called HandyBackup to run sync between live data and backup.

2. Expensive
a. a. for SQL server, run Double Take on both LIVE and Backup.
b. for file server, I'd still use the $40 tool called HandyBackup to run sync between live data and backup.

Either way you'll get what you need. Obviously, you need to run at least quarterly cold backup on your non-data part of the servers.