Re: SBS Backup/Restore- Best Practice

Thank you for all the responses! Your comments have been very helpful.

"Michael Jenkin (mickyj.com)" wrote:

Backups to tape/disk have always been some what of a religious war.
There are lovers and haters in both camps. Everyone has had unique
different expeariances and it flavious their expectations.

I have always loved tape and never had an issue restoring. Others have
had problems. With SBS 2008, without using third party software, most of
us are going to use hard disks (As SBS 2008 was designed for this).

I am actually starting to like hard disks as there are some unique
backup benifits (Besides the obvious one - speed).

I guess what I want to say is both are good. The issue is not what
medium. The issue is .. yes do backups. nomatter the choice. If you do
backups and you know the medium, software and method etc that you choose
works, then do it. As long as the client gets a reliable backup, you are
doing the best practice.

The fact you have run out of room and are seeking alternatives instead
of trying to backup less, again, great practice.

You are doing the right things.

Personally, under SBS 2003, I am using tape drives, under SBS 2008 I am
using disks.

Thanks



Lanwench [MVP - Exchange] wrote:

Kevin Moore <KevinMoore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm using the built-in backup software of SBS 2003. I have DAT72
tapes but I'm not able to fit the whole server on the tape.

Nope, not nowadays. That's way too small a tape medium.

I
decided to backup to external USB hard drives. Is this a good
practice?

Yes - many people do that. Just swap them out nightly (or at least
regularly) and store offsite.

What do you do?

My clients run a mix of tape & external drive - some USB, some eSATA.

Restore- If my entire server was lost, how do I know I have everything
needed to get it going again?

Review your backup logs daily.

I noticed that you can make a floppy
to assist with recovery.

Can you still? In the olden days you'd make a system recovery diskette, but
I thought it was now too big to fit on a floppy.

What is the best practice to ensure your
ready when that "bad" day strikes?

Review your logs. Do practice restores periodically. And remember, unless
you have identcal, spare hardware, you won't be able to restore your SBS
backup to another server - it doesn't do "bare metal" restores to spare
hardware. Get the best hardware you can afford, with redundant drives, power
supplies, whatnot.

And another option, which will offer you more flexibility as to restores, is
an imaging/cloning app that supports hardware-independent restore. I
personally like Acronis TrueImage Echo with Universal Restore. Storage Craft
also gets high marks from many,

Thanks!




--
Michael J. Jenkin, Senior Systems Engineer

Director - Business Technology Partners Pty Ltd (Australia) - Microsoft
Small Business Specialists
Webmaster - http://www.mickyj.com, Community website with SBS answers,
blog and AntiMalware Tools.

Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.com/mickyj



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