Altaro VM Backup for Hyper-V Standard – Virtual Machine Backup, Disaster Recovery, Off-Site Copy

What is included in Altaro VM Backup for Hyper-V Standard?

Hyper-V Backups – Hot, live backups without VM downtime.
Flexible Scheduling – Automated backup jobs on custom recurring schedules.
Granular Restore – Recover single files from backed-up Windows VMs.
Sandbox Verification – Test-restore backups to confirm they work.
Core Capacity – Backs up to five VMs per standalone host.
Important – Cloud, immutable backup and deduplication require Unlimited Plus.

What are the main benefits of Altaro VM Backup for Hyper-V Standard?

Altaro VM Backup for Hyper-V Standard is a per-host backup and replication tool for small, standalone Hyper-V environments. It protects running virtual machines and physical Windows servers, with recovery options ranging from single files to full virtual machines.

Fast Setup – First VM backup running in under fifteen minutes.
Per-Host License – One license covers up to five VMs per host.
Flexible Recovery – Restore files, clones, or VMs to another host.
Tested Backups – Sandbox verification proves restores before a real disaster.
Offsite Copy – Send a second backup copy over the internet.
Small Footprint – Compression keeps backup storage requirements low.

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What does Altaro VM Backup for Hyper-V Standard do?

It backs up and restores virtual machines on a single standalone Hyper-V host, covering up to five VMs per host. Backups are hot and live, so VMs keep running while they are protected, and a first backup can be configured in under fifteen minutes. Recovery options include file-level restore, full VM restore, restore as a clone, and restore to a different host. A built-in sandbox restore lets you boot a backup in isolation to confirm it works before you ever depend on it.

How does the Standard edition differ from Unlimited and Unlimited Plus?

The Standard edition is capped at five VMs per host and leaves out the advanced data-protection features found in the higher tiers. The Unlimited edition removes the VM cap and adds Augmented Inline Deduplication, Boot from Backup, Exchange item-level restore, Grandfather-Father-Son archiving, cross-platform restore, and support for Hyper-V failover clusters (CSV) and VMware vCenter. The Unlimited Plus edition adds everything in Unlimited plus the central Control Panel, cloud backup to providers such as Azure, Amazon S3 and Wasabi, immutable ransomware-resistant cloud storage, WAN-Optimized Replication, and Continuous Data Protection. If you run one small non-clustered Hyper-V host with five or fewer VMs, Standard fits; clusters, cloud, or instant boot require a higher edition.

Does the Standard edition support Hyper-V failover clusters?

No. Support for Microsoft Hyper-V failover clusters (Cluster Shared Volumes) and VMware vCenter is reserved for the Unlimited and Unlimited Plus editions. The Standard edition protects standalone Hyper-V hosts only, so VMs living on a Cluster Shared Volume are not backed up in a cluster-aware way. If your production VMs run on a failover cluster, you would need at least the Unlimited edition to protect them correctly. For a single, non-clustered Hyper-V server this limitation has no practical impact.

Can you back up to the cloud or create immutable backups with the Standard edition?

No. Cloud backup targets — Microsoft Azure, Amazon S3, Wasabi, BackBlaze B2 and Impossible Cloud Storage — together with immutable WORM cloud storage are exclusive to the Unlimited Plus edition. The Standard edition can still send one offsite backup copy over the internet to a location you control, but it cannot write to cloud object storage or lock backups against deletion and ransomware tampering. Standard is also limited to a single offsite location, whereas multiple offsite locations require Unlimited or higher. If ransomware-resilient, immutable cloud copies are part of your recovery plan, Unlimited Plus is the edition that provides them.

Which recovery options are included in the Standard edition?

The Standard edition includes file-level restore, restore as a clone, restore to a different host, and sandbox restore with backup verification. What it omits is Boot from Backup (running a VM directly from its backup file) and Exchange item-level restore, both of which require Unlimited or Unlimited Plus. In practice you can recover a single file, rebuild an entire VM, or move it to another host, but you cannot spin a VM up straight from the backup repository for near-instant continuity. For most single-server environments the included granular and full-VM restores are sufficient; teams that need minimal downtime usually move up an edition for Boot from Backup.

Frequently asked questions about Altaro VM Backup for Hyper-V Standard

Can the Standard edition back up physical Windows servers?

Yes. Physical server backup is available in every edition, including Standard, so a standalone physical Windows file or database server can be protected from the same installation that handles your Hyper-V VMs. This is useful when one or two legacy machines are not yet virtualized but still hold important data.

Are primary on-site backups encrypted in the Standard edition?

In the Standard edition, AES (military-grade) encryption is applied to offsite backups only; the primary on-site backup is stored unencrypted. Encryption of both primary and offsite backups is available in the Unlimited and Unlimited Plus editions. If your local backup repository sits on shared or less-secured storage, this is worth factoring into your choice of edition.