A strategic analysis of Safe Credit Union's backup infrastructure — and the path to predictable costs, faster recovery, and stronger ransomware protection.
This briefing focuses on risk mitigation, financial predictability, and operational simplicity — tailored to Safe CU's business priorities.
Faster restores improve member service uptime and reduce recovery time for core banking systems — with a fixed-length backup window as data grows.
Tiered air gap architecture reduces regulatory exposure and protects backup retention from threat actors — with delayed deletes and immutable data objects.
Scale-out model eliminates forklift upgrades and stabilizes capital expenditure over 5–7 years — no controller replacements, no CapEx shock events.
An infrastructure review creates an opportunity to align backup architecture with business continuity and financial discipline.
Backup and recovery directly impact member-facing services and confidence. Faster recovery means faster service restoration.
NCUA examiners expect demonstrable recovery capabilities and audit defensibility. The right backup architecture strengthens examination posture.
Senior management prioritizes predictable spending with minimal capital shock events. Scale-out architecture delivers linear, plannable cost scaling.
Small IT team needs low-maintenance, automated solutions that reduce operational overhead — not systems that require constant babysitting.
Financial institutions face elevated targeting. Backup is the last line of defense — and must be hardened against threat actors who target backups first.
Data volumes continue to grow. The backup solution must scale seamlessly without performance degradation or disruptive forklift upgrades.
Veeam + HPE StoreOnce uses a scale-up inline deduplication model that introduces growing technical and financial risk over time.
Inline deduplication slows ingest and restore due to compute-intensive rehydration. Scale-up architecture means performance degrades as data grows — there's no way to escape the growing window without a forklift upgrade.
When the fixed front-end controller reaches capacity, a costly forklift upgrade is required — disruptive, unpredictable, and often poorly timed with budget cycles.
All retention remains network-facing. No tiered air gap means a threat actor can potentially access all backup data — eliminating the last line of defense for member data.
HPE StoreOnce requires a same-sized system at the DR site, doubling capital exposure for disaster recovery. ExaGrid can protect the same data with a half-sized DR system.
A pro/con analysis across the key dimensions that matter to your team.
| Capability | HPE StoreOnce (Current) | Veeam + ExaGrid (Recommended) | Cloud-Only |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ingest Performance (max system) | 72–144 TB/hr | 649 TB/hr (4.5–9× faster) | Bandwidth-limited |
| Restore Performance | Slow — requires rehydration | 20× faster via Landing Zone | Very slow (egress cost + latency) |
| Fixed Backup Window as Data Grows | ✗ No — window grows | ✓ Yes — scale-out adds compute | ✗ Bandwidth-constrained |
| Forklift Upgrades Required | ✗ Yes — at controller limits | ✓ Never — add appliances | ✓ N/A |
| Ransomware Air Gap | ✗ None — all data on network | ✓ Non-network-facing tier | ~ Provider-dependent |
| Immutable Backup Objects | ✗ Unclear | ✓ RTL + S3 Object Lock | ~ Varies by provider |
| Deduplication Ratio | 14:1 | Up to 20:1 global dedupe | Varies |
| DR Site System Size | Same-size system required | Half-size system sufficient | Subscription-based |
| Max Full Backup | 1.6 PB | 6 PB | Theoretically unlimited |
| Veeam Integration | Standard | Deepest — SOBR + Data Mover | Object store only |
| NCUA / Regulatory Posture | ~ Partial | ✓ Strong — audit defensible | ~ Requires architecture work |
| Learning Curve / Transition Risk | None (incumbent) | Minimal — parallel deploy + POC | High — new workflows |
| CapEx Predictability | Low — shock events at EOL | High — linear scale-out cost | OpEx — variable with data growth |
Protecting member data and strengthening audit defensibility for NCUA examination.
Backup retention stored in a virtual tier that is invisible and inaccessible to threat actors on the network. HPE StoreOnce stores all data on the network — ExaGrid does not.
Data cannot be prematurely deleted. ExaGrid's Retention Time-Lock (RTL) double-locks the repository on top of S3 Object Lock — providing layered immutability even if credentials are compromised.
AI-powered monitoring identifies unusual deletion patterns before damage spreads — providing an early warning system that keeps your team ahead of threats rather than reacting to them.
This calculator shows the true amount of disk capacity required to store Veeam backups with ReFS/XFS. Use it to validate that any proposed solution is properly sized for your retention requirements.
| Copy # | Full/Synth (TB) | Mon-Fri Inc (TB) | Weekend Inc (TB) | Weekly Total (TB) | Cumulative (TB) |
|---|
ExaGrid's 10:1 additional deduplication dramatically reduces the physical storage required — and the DR site only needs half the capacity of the primary.
Organizations like Safe CU — financial institutions with lean IT teams and demanding regulatory environments — have made this transition successfully.
A structured deployment approach that removes transition risk entirely — no cutover until you're confident.
ExaGrid deployed alongside existing infrastructure. No removal until fully validated and staff comfortable.
Redirect backup jobs to ExaGrid within the same Veeam interface — minimal configuration change, no new software to learn.
Confirm backup windows, restore times, and replication with your dedicated ExaGrid support engineer.
Cut over to ExaGrid as primary on your schedule — only when you have full confidence in performance and operations.
ExaGrid offers a hands-on evaluation so Safe CU can validate performance and ease of use in your own environment before committing — removing adoption risk entirely. You validate first; you decide when you're ready.