backups

[EN4]

Hi,
I'm new to SBS2003 and would like to know how good the backup is done. Can one rely on SS's backup or do we need a third party (say acronis true image) software?
thanks

 

[ShackDaddy]

You would not be doing a good backup if you just used Acronis' product.

The built-in backup for SBS is very good for a single-server situation. The best thing for you to do would be to just run the backup wizard to set up your backups. It will back up what is needed to restore files or to do a complete system recovery. It will also set some settings like determining how long to keep deleted mail before really purging it.

The other thing you should do is get properties on your data drives (using My Computer) and make sure that Shadow Copy is turned on for the drives on which you store most of your data. I'd keep it turned on for the C: drive as well. Using Shadow Copy client that's in the clientapps share, your users won't even need to ask you to restore files they've overwritten or deleted: they'll be able to restore them themselves.

ShackDaddy
Shackelford Consulting

 

[EN4]

Thank you. When you say that SBS backup can do a complete system recovery you mean that if ever I have a crash (I hope not this is a brand new not yet install server) I would just need to run the backup correctly and get everything restored back (no need to reinstall the os and no need to reset it?).

 

[ShackDaddy]

If your system got hosed, you would actually re-install SBS, but once it was online, you'd run a full restore from your backup media. Most of the details you need are in this document:

http://www.sbsurl.com/backup

ShackDaddy
Shackelford Consulting