Sounds very similar to our old situation - using tape and having to do
custom backups with NTBackup to make them fit, wondering if you missed
anything, wondering if you could handle a full disaster recovery...
We switched over to ShadowProtect SBS (SP) last year and haven't looked
back. I am able to do backups every 2 hours during the day without issues
(how often you can backup is based more on the size of your backup drives).
It integrates fully into VSS so Exchange & SQL are fully backed up using
MS-methods. Their hardware independent restore (HIR) really works and their
backup system is much quicker and efficient than using NTBackup any day. It
also works with SBS2008 (although 2008's native backup has gotten good
reviews but I am unsure that it can handle HIR).
http://www.storagecraft.com/shadow_protect_SBS.php
Best part, it was easy to actually test and document a disaster recovery
scenario -- I could restore my SBS server OS/exchange/SQL/ISA to completely
different hardware in an hour (a little longer with all our data) plug in a
domain laptop and go -- it worked flawlessly (once you update drivers, etc.)
and has saved me some sleep as our server hardware is a little older than it
should be ;-)
Some notes on how I use SP:
1) Schedule a NTBackup system state backup once a week when SP is not
running just in case you need it.
2) To allow exchange logfiles to be properly handled you need to turn on the
exchange VSS writer. Note that doing this precludes using SBSBackup but it
sounds like you weren't using it anyway (workaround:
http://blog.sbs-rocks.com/2009/06/be...nd-sbs-backup/)
3) I find it best to throw in a large un-raided IDE/SATA drive in the server
and backup to that. I then use robocopy scripts triggered to run after SP
finishes to copy the backups to multiple locations (including our external
USB drive). You can have SP backup to the external drive directly, I just
like this better as the backup will still run if someone forgets the
external drive.
I don't work for them I just really like the program, it has saved my bacon
a couple times already. If you email them you can download a fully
functional trial version.
--
Allan Williams
Scott Rymer wrote:
> I'm going to be replacing my 72GB (3x36GB) RAID 5 with a 292GB
> (3x146GB) RIAD 5 and will also need to change my backup strategy. I'm
> currently using a DAT72 tape drive with SBS2003 and I'm slowing
> excluding more and more from the backup so it will fit on the tapes
> (don't worry... using an external USB w/ Robocopy for the rest).
>
> Keeping SBS2008 in mind, I'm contemplating just using external USB
> drives but I've been given a competitive quote on Backup Exec (for
> SBS) with a DLT 160/320 tape solution and I'm told that this is far
> superior to the native SBS backup. Price wise, I could buy a lot of
> portable external USB drives and use the free NT Backup for the price
> of the Backup Exec/Tape solution.
> I know Backup Exec includes an Exchange Agent and an add-on SQL Agent
> but what if I were to setup my future SBS2008 in a Hyper-V 1+1
> scenario? Does Backup Exec cover this as well? What about NT Backup?
>
> My gut is telling me to just go with USB drives as it seems the most
> popular option in the newsgroups...
>
> SBS2003 Standard with SQL 2005 Standard on another Win2k3 server.
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