Re: Best SBS Backup Software?
From: Les Connor [SBS Community Member - SBS MVP] (les.connor_at_DEL.cfive.ca)
Date: 03/12/05
- Next message: Les Connor [SBS Community Member - SBS MVP]: "Re: CEICW: Missing option in Firewall/WebServices Configuration"
- Previous message: Matt Gibson: "Re: Freezing on laptops"
- In reply to: Marc G: "Best SBS Backup Software?"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 21:30:12 -0600
Times change ;-).
I used BE on SBS 4.5 and 2k. It had nice media managment, and the ability
for brick level email restores. I think I used the brick level restore once
in about 5 years.
With SBS2k3, the SBSbackup does a really good job. For example, rotating
multiple copies to HD, VSS writers, etc. And by using an unmanaged tape
method that really simplifies things for customers and actually greatly
increases the potential for two things: a) a backup, and b) what you need to
restore is actually on the backup, and restorable.
Plus, the bare metal restore is tested and documented - if you let SBSbackup
do it's job, then you only have to follow the procedure for disaster
recovery.
SBSBackup, using ntbackup, doesn't offer direct brick level email restore,
but there is a round-about way to do it with recovery storage group. Given
that I don't believe brick level restore is widely used, it's really hard to
justify the expense of BE.
Times continue to change.
Tape is still the king. It's still the best way to protect yourself from
disaster. The major reason most look to other media types is expense - tape
drives haven't come down in price the way other components have. Lesser
reasons to look at other media types are; capacity, capacity/cost,
durability of some types of tapes; and speed.
Protection from most types of disaster can be provided by media other than
tape - but tape is still the most convenient way to provide off-site backup
copies.
Backup to hdd, especially if it's external to the server, is gaining
popularity. The cost/GB is way less than tape, and it's faster. USB drives
provide good transportability between systems, and are not bad for off-site
storage. This is still emerging technology for backup; there are some issues
but they're fairly minor. Durability of the drives and connectors is yet to
be proven long-term, and purchasing drives for archival purposes is quite
expensive, relative to tape. But times will continue to change.
Back to the software front - and BE versus SBSbackup versus disk imaging !!.
Imaging seems to make a lot of sense.
The right kind of imaging software will allow restores of entire disks,
partitions, right down to a single file level. Live imaging is here now,
which means you can schedule images the way you would schedule backups, and
without leaving windows. Disaster recovery can be reduced to minutes.
Live imaging software for servers has been expensive, but there's at least
one product that I'm currently evaluating that everyone can afford, and so
far it looks really promising. For example, Paragon Software has a product
called Drive Backup that's like $50. http://www.drive-backup.com/. I booted
up from their Recovery CD and restored an SBS2k3 premium (about 7 gb) test
box in under 15 minutes.
I think imaging to portable HDD media is the way of the future. I'm sure
that as time goes by, and in the not-to-distant future, there will be media
developed that will also allow for inexpensive long-term archival. CD and
DVD capacities are clearly too small to do this efficiently. With what we
have today, drive image to HDD, and periodic transfer of that image to tape
for long term archival is about as good as it gets.
-- Les Connor [SBS Community Member - SBS MVP] ----------------------------------------------------------- SBS Rocks ! "Marc G" <mag2_NO_SPAM!@greenleafsr.com> wrote in message news:11338rj55gsla47@corp.supernews.com... >I recently started using SBS2003 and have been using Veritas BackupExec wit > a 4mm Seagate Tape. > VBE has been nothing but trouble. It is unreliable and has many hotfixes > and > SP's seem to be making it worse. > > I would like to hear about other options for SBS backup and quick restore > features. > Experirence seems the best advice. > > Thanks, > Marc > >
- Next message: Les Connor [SBS Community Member - SBS MVP]: "Re: CEICW: Missing option in Firewall/WebServices Configuration"
- Previous message: Matt Gibson: "Re: Freezing on laptops"
- In reply to: Marc G: "Best SBS Backup Software?"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Relevant Pages
|
