A virtual machine (VM) is a virtual environment created within a physical hardware system that functions as a virtual computer system. It emulates a complete set of hardware components, including CPUs, memory, network interfaces, and storage, and provides an isolated environment from the rest of the system.
A VM runs on a hypervisor, which is firmware, hardware, or computer software designed to create and run virtual machines. The VM hypervisor separates machine resources from the hardware and prepares them appropriately for use by the virtual machine. Currently, the most popular hypervisors in the virtualization market are Hyper-V and VMware, which allow users to build IT infrastructures of any complexity.
Virtualization helps cut massive work costs and improves efficiency for individuals or businesses. Because of its significance, you need to back up and protect your VM data regularly with VM backup software to maintain the flexibility you need for work.
These days, many businesses rely on virtualization and virtual machines to run their databases, applications, and other enterprise workloads. Traditional backup solutions fail to provide adequate data protection because of the unique demands and large amounts of data in virtual environments. That's where software that can back up virtual machines comes in.
There are many backup solutions out there, so when selecting the top choices for the best free VM backup software, we considered the following criteria to ensure that each one is reliable.
Based on these criteria, we chose the best free backup software. Read on for the details and pick the one that suits you most!
Todo Backup Enterprise is the most recommended software for enterprise and server virtual machine backup. It can easily and quickly back up your system and virtual machine files. It also backs up the entire physical server or virtual server to a compressed image file, ensuring quick recovery in any data disaster scenario.
It provides all the support needed for system image recovery or system restore, and offers customizable enterprise backup solutions, including local, offsite data backup, and cloud backup. All in all, if you're looking for a comprehensive yet affordable VM backup software for your business, Todo Backup Enterprise is an excellent choice.
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Todo Backup Enterprise offers a free trial, and a 30-day money-back guarantee when you purchase the full version, helping businesses reduce costs effectively.
Now let's see how to back up a virtual machine with Todo Backup Enterprise, which only takes a few simple steps.
Step 1: Launch Todo Backup Enterprise and click "Create Task" to set up a new backup.
Click "Create New Task" to create a backup.
Step 2. In the top options, choose Disks/Volumes as the destination. Then select the disk you want to back up.
Select the system to back up
Step 3: Then click on "Browse" and choose the location where you want to save the backup file.
Select destination
4. Click on "Schedule: Off" to set up a backup schedule. Here you will see the "Schedule", "Backup Clean-up", and "Advanced Settings" tabs. Under the "Schedule" tab, click "New".
Then set the backup frequency to suit your needs.
5. Click the "Backup Options" button in the bottom-left corner of the window.
Here, you can change options for performance, encryption, email notifications, and more, as needed. When you're done, click Save to return to the main screen.
Step 6: Once all settings are configured, click "Start Backup" to begin backing up your disk.
Click “Start Backup” to initiate the system backup.
Acronis Cyber Protect is an excellent virtual machine backup software. It allows you to back up and restore individual physical or virtual files, applications, or entire systems. Acronis is geared towards small businesses and comes with robust security features that help protect against other malware intrusions.
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Acronis Cyber Protect offers a 30-day free trial, but registration is required to access it.
Vembu BDR Suite Backup and Replication is an advanced backup software from Vembu that offers backup solutions for various scenarios, including virtual machines, physical servers, cloud, and SaaS applications, along with support for both full backups and incremental backups. It also features built-in encryption and compression, and offers multiple editions tailored to different user needs.
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Vembu offers flexible licensing options and a 30-day free trial.
As a backup software, Veeam Backup and Replication (VBR) stands high in the market with features like file system indexing, various backup types, convenient file recovery, and recovery validation. It supports backing up multiple systems and offers extra VMware vSphere support. With it, you can easily address data issues with VM files.
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Windows, Linux, macOS, UNIX, NAS
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VBR offers a 30-day free trial. Also, since VBR doesn't require any additional software or agents, it's more cost-effective than other backup tools.
Altaro VM Backup is a user-friendly and intuitive virtual machine backup software that allows you to set everything up in just 15 minutes, greatly enhancing your backup efficiency. It focuses on VMware VMs and Microsoft Hyper-V, providing excellent solutions for both.
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Altaro VM Backup offers a free version and has an official 30-day free trial for its paid software.
Rubrik is an excellent backup software that provides secure protection for virtual machines, simplifies data management, and enables the recovery of VM data. It leverages powerful APIs to automate many tasks, such as automatic cloning and creation, thus alleviating your workload.
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Rubrik offers a free demo for you to try before you buy.
An excellent virtual machine backup software can protect your personal or company's virtual data. We've introduced 6 of the best VM backup software, among which Todo Backup Enterprise is highly recommended. It offers a simple yet powerful VM backup solution at an affordable price. Click the download button below to start backing up your VM data right away!
The best backup solution for VMware is to use the Todo Backup Enterprise tool. It possesses professional capabilities and can handle various backup tasks. It can be customized to suit the needs of users based on different business sizes and usage scenarios, fulfilling all your requirements for VMware backups.
You can use the Todo Backup Enterprise tool to back up virtual machine files. Here are some simple steps you can follow:
Step 1: Download and run Todo Backup Enterprise.
Step 2: Click the "New Task" button to set up a new backup.
Step 3: Select Disk/Volume, and then choose the disk where your VM files are stored.
Step 4: Set up your own backup options and click the “Start” button to initiate the VM backup immediately.