Re: Backup strategdy...

I can't comment about BE. Last I knew, Ghost wasn't supported on servers.

My recommendation would be to use ShadowProtect Server 3.0. There's an SBS
version that's very attractively priced.

What this would do is one full backup a week, with incremental backups as
you schedule them. I do every three hours during business hours - 4
incrementals per day. I'm not actually using it on my SBS yet, but I do use
it on two member servers. Full backups take about 1-2 hours depending on
the data volume, and incrementals take less than 5 minutes. There is no
noticeable impact on server performance during backup, as it's using VSS
rather than accessing the live file system.

If a drive failed, you'd boot off the CD and restore from backup. Version 3
has a "hardware independent restore" feature that will automatically load in
the drivers if you have to switch to different hardware for the restore.

You can get a trial version, and there's SBS pricing for a version that I
think is identical to the regular version, but only runs on SBS.
http://www.storagecraft.com/

"Roveer" <roveer@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:3ak0j.27$AT7.24@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
As I get closer to putting my SBS server into production I'm trying to
find a good solution to backup.

I have two main concepts that I wish to cover when backing up. My server
is set up as an OS partition C: which contains the SBS installation and
the Data partition D: which contains the exchange directory and all user
data. The Data partition is on an Adaptec Raid 6 configuration while the
C: partition is motherboard Raid 1 mirror.

So, my thinking and experience is that I would like to be able to image
the C: drive on a regular basis and have it readily available to restore
in the event of a complete failure. I've been doing this for a few years
with my XP server equivelent and occasionally pull the 2nd drive in the
mirror and put in a fresh drive then taking the other drive off-site.
Additionally, I'm looking at Backup Exec and the continuous exchange
backup and data backups to take care of the user data.

What I would like to avoid is if I had a complete drive C: failure having
to re-install SBS, apply service paks etc before I could even begin an OS
restore. On many of my workstations, and my XP server equivelent today I
just use Norton Ghost 9.0 to take an image of the OS volume and in the
event of a disaster, use the norton boot disk to restore the entire OS.
I've done it many times, use it when I'm modeling my desktops etc. In my
particular setup it would be possible to lose the OS on drive C: and have
all the D: data/exchange be just fine, so being able to just re-image the
OS back to its working state would bring things back on-line nicely.

I see Norton has a Ghost 2003 as well as newer versions. I've heard a bit
about Acronis and I am looking at BackupExec 11D.

My questions are as follows:

1. Is my thinking flawed with the OS Imaging to allow for quicker
restores? Don't want to be reinstalling SBS and patches if I can avoid it.

2. Do any of the mentioned products, specifically BE 11D do the imaging
for quick restore that I'm looking for?

Thanks,

Roveer




.

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