Due to data privacy laws, initial seeds and restore drives are only available for partners/accounts located in the United States.
This article provides the following topics:
- Circumstances Appropriate for a Restore Drive
- Ordering a Restore Drive
- Time to Receive a Restore Drive
- Shipping the Restore Drive
- Returning a Restore Drive
Circumstances Appropriate for a Restore Drive
In instances where using a client's internet connection to perform a restore would take too long, you can request to have a hard drive – called a restore drive - with your client's encrypted data shipped to you for a faster restore. The largest drive available to you is 16TB which holds up to 14.5 TB of data. These are all NTFS formatted USB3 external hard drives.
Once you have the restore drive, the Backup Agent extracts the data from the restore drive rather than downloading it from the cloud.
When considering whether to use a restore drive, please keep in mind it takes time to create a restore drive and to have the restore drive shipped which, under some circumstances, may make it faster to restore your data normally than it would if you used a restore drive.
Generally, if your client's download bandwidth (Mbps) compared to the amount of data they want to restore (GB) has a ratio greater than 1:25, a restore drive does not result in an appreciably shorter restore.
Download Bandwidth | Size of Data Being Restored |
< 5 Mbps | > 100 GB |
< 25 Mbps | > 500 GB |
< 50 Mbps | > 1 TB |
< 100 Mbps | > 2 TB |
This rule of thumb is true for backup set types which are almost always bandwidth-limited, including SQL, Exchange Information Store, Hyper-V Standard, and VMware Standard. However, for some backup set types (Exchange Mailbox Level and File and Folder) you are more likely to approach the software's inherent processing limit before network bandwidth becomes an issue. If your client has download bandwidth greater than 50-100 Mbps and you are trying to restore either Exchange Mailbox Level or File and Folder backups, there is little benefit from using a restore drive.
Ordering a Restore Drive
You can order a restore drive by contacting Barracuda MSP Support at 408-342-5300 or support@barracudamsp.com .
When placing your order, make sure you specify which client account and computer ID you want a restore drive for.
After ordering, Support may have you double-check the shipping address and method and ask you to approve the cost of the restore drive service – when this is completed, the restore drive starts processing and you will be notified of when it ships.
Time to Receive a Restore Drive
The time at which we receive the request along with the size of backed up data determines the turnaround timetable.
For the quickest processing of a drive, provide the earliest notice possible. Processing of your drive request may take several days, several weeks or longer depending on the size of the account that needs to be restored.
Shipping the Restore Drive
Before the drive is shipped the following is requested:
- a credit card to charge for the restore drive and shipping.
- an address to which the restore drive should be sent.
If you are set to bill by check, we can add the credit card and only charge it for the drive service.
Before the drive is shipped, an email with the restore drive's UPS tracking number is provided to you.
Returning a Restore Drive
When you have restored what you need from a restore drive, ship the drive and any attachments to the following address:
Partner Support
Barracuda Networks MSP
100 Apollo Drive, Suite 205
Chelmsford, MA 01824