Re: Backup v. Shadow Copy v. Both

the downside is with using an external USB hard drive to store your shadow
copy.

What happens with shadow copy if you suddenly take away the disk drive it's
trying to write to? I can envision the day where someone needs the external
hard drive and disconnects it from the server -- and later that day, you
have a user that's deleted a file that you desperately need to restore.
Shadow copy, by default, does its updates twice a day.

All I'm suggesting is to use the USB drive for what it is intended for ...
an external backup or auxiliary drive. But not for something as critical as
the volume shadow copy.

Then again ... maybe I'm wrong ... but that's my opinion!

--
Kevin Weilbacher [SBS-MVP]
"The days pass by so quickly now, the nights are seldom long"



"RTMooney" <RTMooney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:AF9DD599-4027-4D59-9696-E78F82B00EFD@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>I appreciate your answer, but leads me to another question. Simply, what's
> the downside of storing Shadow Copies on an alternate drive? I understand
> the value of it (s/c)... You seem to have very strong opinions about not
> putting s/c's on another drive. Does it help to know that only one volume
> has any significant amount of user shared folders? Believe it or not, I'm
> concerned about space constraints and am trying to postpone a server
> upgrade.
> Just trying to understand...
>
> Thanks again.
>
> "Kevin Weilbacher [SBS-MVP]" wrote:
>
>> Use your external USB hard drive to do an alternate backup of your server
>> or
>> of selected data files, but NOT for your shadow copy.
>>
>> You can read what you want about where to put shadow copy files, but
>> given
>> you ahve two partitions, you do don;t really have a lot of choice,
>> nor ---IMHO - does it really matter much.
>>
>> Shadow Copy has been literally a saviour to me at many sites, or makes me
>> look like a savior to a customer. They call up in a pnic, we just deleted
>> this very important Excel spread*** file and we need it ASAP. I can RWW
>> into the server, go to the drive in question and within a minute have
>> that
>> file restored.
>>
>> Bottom line, please don't make iut harder than it is. Using a USB drive
>> is
>> not the answer for shadow copies!
>>
>> --
>> Kevin Weilbacher [SBS-MVP]
>> "The days pass by so quickly now, the nights are seldom long"
>>
>>
>> "RTMooney" <RTMooney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:B21ADFFE-5244-400C-969E-E77A95F38753@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> > We run SBS2003 SP1 and use Backup Exec for SBS to back up daily with 8
>> > tape
>> > rotation. Pretty good, except restore is a pain. Heard Shadow Copy
>> > was a
>> > good alternative for quicker restore of client files (application data
>> > that
>> > someone has trashed). Read some about Shadow Copy and saw
>> > recommendations
>> > against storing shadow copies on same drive being copied (for high i/o
>> > drives
>> > like ours). Server is partitioned into 2 drives (C: & E:) for server
>> > system
>> > and application files/data. This is my plan and I would appreciate any
>> > comments anyone will provide:
>> > 1. Continue using BE for full system backups, including Exchange
>> > mailboxes
>> > and messages.
>> > 2. Attach external hard drive (USB 2.0) and configure as a 3rd local
>> > disk.
>> > Designate as storage location for shadow copies of drives C: & E: and
>> > with
>> > a
>> > large external hard drive, I could keep MANY versions. Probably only
>> > 1-2
>> > shadow copies per day.
>> >
>> > Any comments--is this really as easy as it sounds? BTW, all clients
>> > are
>> > XP
>> > Pro SP2.
>> >
>> > Thanks in advance.
>> >
>>
>>
>>


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