Best Practices

Magnus Box aims to be as versatile and easy to use as possible. To help improve the backup success rate and restore integrity, we recommend the following:

Few Devices per User Account

Limiting the number of devices tied to a single user account will reduce the overlap of different backup jobs. We recommend a maximum of four devices per user account. Ideally, each device has its own user account, but we realize this adds complexity and tedium.

By default, all of the devices on a user account share the same Storage Vault, and all backups share the same Vault. To prevent data corruption, each backup locks the Storage Vault to ensure it is the only job writing data. If a different backup job attempts to upload data during the lock period, it will produce an error stating: "Cannot proceed - another task needs to finish using the Storage Vault first." However, if each device has its own user account, it will also have its own Storage Vault, greatly reducing the likelihood of this error.

If multiple user accounts are not feasible, this error can be mitigated by creating multiple Storage Vaults for each backup. To learn how to do this, please see our Custom Storage Vault KB Article.

Pair Disk Image with File & Folder

Disk Image backups are perfect for disaster recovery scenarios and can expedite the restoration of a wiped endpoint. Although Disk Image backups can restore individual files and folders, this process usually takes longer because of differences in how the data is stored. To combat this, we recommend running a File & Folder backup in addition to each Disk Image backup on a device. This enables individual files to be restored (File & Folder) quickly, as well as an image file (Disk Image) for bare metal scenarios.

VM Guest and VM Host Backups

When backing up virtual machines (VMs), several different options are apparent. At a bare minimum, we recommend running a File & Folder backup on the VM Host / Server machine. Ideally, a File & Folder and Disk Image backup are configured for the VM Host and for each VM (VM Guests) on the host machine.

Backing up the individual VM Guests will incur an additional charge as they are considered a separate endpoint. However, having a dedicated VM Guest backup makes restoring individual files from the VM much easier. It limits the scope of the backup and makes finding and restoring a file from a VM Guest much easier. A Disk Image backup is also helpful for each VM Guest because it will restore as an image file that can be mounted by most virtual machine interfaces to recreate the VM Guest.

An example backup environment is depicted in the table below.

Not-For-Resale Usage

Each paying Partner gets three (3) free licenses to use as they see fit. These Not-For-Resale ("NFR") licenses are often used to back up Partner infrastructure, like an office desktop or personal laptop. However, they can also be used by a client to make a 100% profit from a sale. You are also able to use these licenses on workstations and servers. Magnus Box will not penalize Partners for using NFRs on client endpoints. More information on license usage can be found here.