MSP360 Backup review: Very effective local backup — and free file backup!

Best Prices Today: MSP360 Desktop Backup

I checked out both the free and paid versions of MSP360 Desktop Backup for this review. Shockingly, the free version maintains enough of the paid version’s features to warrant a 4-star rating — even without support for consumer-grade online storage support that its Cloudberry Backup ancestor featured.

Consider the free MSP360 Desktop Backup a nicely robust upgrade from Windows eminently useful File History.

Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best Windows backup software for comparison.

What are MSP360 Desktop Backup’s features?

The most salient difference between the free and paid versions of MSP360 Desktop Backup is the former’s lack of support for image backups. It also lacks encryption/compression, backup of virtual machines, support for Exchange, and other decidedly pro features. Like I said, think File History.

Beyond that, a surprising amount of functionality is present and as far as I could tell, it’s not neutered at every turn as with a number of other freebies. There are full and incremental backups; scheduling that’s granular down to minutes; culling of backups (purging older backups, including grandfather/father/son options; as well as pre- and post- program execution).

Also on the feature list: NTFS options (permissions); file filters; a backup consistency check; email notifications; and a disaster recovery boot disk, albeit minus bare metal restore — i.e. the ability to restore to new, dissimilar hardware.

Bare metal restore is nice, but Windows includes generic drivers for everything basic these days, so the need isn’t nearly what it was back in the day when you might need to inject the Ethernet or Wi-Fi drivers to facilitate downloading all the other drivers.

You can even back up from, as well as to, network locations — if they’re already mounted as drive letters under Windows. Online storage may serve as a source as well. More on supported services in a bit. Whew! I did mention that this is the freebie, right?

My biggest disappointment with MSP360 Desktop Backup, including the paid version, is that, unlike its Cloudberry Backup predecessor, online storage support is limited to prosumer/IT-oriented services such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon S3, S3-compatibles, Google cloud, etc. In other words, there’s no support for the Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Box, etc., that most of us use.

That pretty much means that the freebie, when it comes to the average user, is good only for local storage and local network backup.

I do have one or two other minor gripes. Numero uno, I wish there was support for non-proprietary container files such as VHD so that the program wasn’t required for restore operations.

Also, it would be nice to be able to define multiple destinations for each data set rather than having to create a new job for every destination. On the other hand, you can chain backup jobs for execution.

Those are standard suggestions on my part for a lot of backup software and don’t really affect overall functionality — or the rating. Not much at least.

How much does MSP360 Desktop Backup cost?

MSP360 Desktop Backup is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Obviously, the free version costs nothing, but the Standalone version with imaging will set you back $30 a year. There is no perpetual option — a bit of a bummer, as rarely do backup programs improve drastically in a year’s time. Blame that on their existing maturity. Are you listening, Acronis?

If you are interested in the paid-level features and online (remote) management of multiple computers, there’s also MSP360 Managed Backup for $2.50 per seat, per month, or $30 per seat yearly. However, storage is extra, with $72 yearly for 1TB Wasabi being the default. Alas, no consumer-grade online storage services are supported so you can’t leverage those.

That makes the Managed Backup version possibly the better deal than Desktop, but only if your storage service aligns.

Note that restore functionality remains intact perpetually so you can always restore your backups if you drop your paid subscription. That’s essential if you’re using proprietary data containers as MSP360 does.

How does MSP360 Desktop Backup perform?

I did my initial testing with the free version, and my only issue was self-inflicted — choosing a drive without enough free space to contain the backup. This forced an error. Hitting the restart button caused another error as the program tried to create an incremental backup.

Obviously, the program didn’t realize that the first job had failed. I reformatted the destination to free up enough space in the mean time, and choosing the “Force full backup” command solved that issue.

Am I a bit hasty? Yes. I tend to rush testing in order to better spot possible weaknesses that might bite end users. You’d be surprised how often it works. That said, the program could be just a tad smarter about checking that there’s enough space on the destination, or that there’s a valid full backup before trying to create an incremental addition.

Without space-challenged destinations, MSP360 Desktop Backup proceeded through numerous jobs without issue.

The company sent me a license for the paid version so I could test the imaging backup. I’m very happy to report that the imaging works quite well. The disaster recovery disk booted fine, and restore operations (image and file) went off without a hitch. Good on ya’, MSP360.

Should you buy MS360 Desktop Backup?

If you need something more powerful than Windows File History for your file backups, then the free version of MS360 Desktop Backup is a no-brainer. However, it’s difficult to recommend the paid version, which is subscription software that’s not going to evolve significantly on a year-to-year basis.

On the other hand, the soon-to-be-reviewed, and like-priced MS360 Managed Backup might just be worth the expense if you need to monitor and control backup chores for several computers remotely.