Best Way to Backup on Server

[chrisb1357]

Hi all,

Not sure if anyone can help me but i have just started to get into Server 2003 and i have been managing a small network that runs Server 2003 with around 5 users at one of our offices.

At the minute an outside company setup the backup to run each night and to backup to a USB HDD Mon to Thur and then to a 2nd USB HDD each friday. The problem is it seems to overwrite the previous nights backup on the USB HDD each night so we can only go back 1 night if we need to restore.

We are using the built in Windows Backup software to do this.

Can anyone give me any tips or best practise to change this backup as i think this is not the correct way.

I am unable to get anymore USB HDD's so will onyl have the 2 to work with.

Cheers

 

[Lemon13]

http://www.exabyte.com/support/online/documentation/whitepapers/basicbackup.pdf

M. Knorr

MCSE, MCTS, MCSA, CCNA

 

[kmills]

chrisb,

Do you have enough space on your USB HHD to store more than one backup?
On the servers where I use Windows Backup for weekly backups, I schedule 3 (use whatever number you have space for) backups -- each having a different name, each writing to a different file, each running every 3 weeks but starting on a different week, each set to overwrite itself the next time it runs. That way I have backups from 3 different weeks because each only overwrites the previous one by that name.
The same technique could apply for daily backups. But, you do need the space to store them.

kmills

 

[chrisb1357]

Hi,

Many thanks for the advice from people so far. I have set the backup to the following now if you can let me know what you think.

Backup Deviec 1 (USB HDD)(Mon to Thur)
I have created a folder for each day of the week for Mon to thur and then created a backup job for each day to repeat weekly.

Backup Device 2 (USB HDD)(Fri & End of Month)
I have created a folder called Friday and End of Month and created a backup to run each Friday and also the last Sat of each month.

I have set these to all do normal backups and to overwrite. Will they only overwrite the bkf file in each folder or does this format the USB HDD.

Not sure if this is the correct way as i am still learning you see.

Cheers

 

[GrimR]

Will they only overwrite the bkf file in each folder or does this format the USB HDD.

It will not format the USB drive, only overwrite you bkf files.

In fact if you need to do that you need to. [If you dont want to DONT do it].

1. Right click My Computer and select Manage.

2. Open the Device Manager and find your USB drive under the Disk Drives heading.

3. Right click the drive and select Properties.

4. Choose Policies tab and select the "Optimize for performance" option.

Edit the G: to the drive letter your USB is using and enter this next line in notepad, and save as format USB.bat

format G: /FS:NTFS /V:External /Q /Y



MCITP:EA/SA, MCSE, MCSA, MCDBA, MCTS, MCP+I, MCP

 

[chrisb1357]

Cheers,

Will see how it go's on tonights backup.
Is it best to always do a full backup if i have space to or daily. the MS Backup software had a few options to pick so i selected Full as there is not much to backup space wise

Chris

 

[chrisb1357]

Well last nightd backup ran ok toa Monday folder i created on the USB HDD, Noticed the backup is now 15GB so i must have selected full system backup (Is this ok) i have about 500GB of HDD left on the backup drive.

Cheers

 

[GrimR]

sounds good, just remember if there is a fire all server info and USB backups will be lost. You may want to backup the backups to tape or get a second USB drive and rotate them every 2 days or as you see appropriate.
Another nice thing to do for quick restore of files is to enable shadow copy on the drives and set a schedule 2 or 3 times a day, then install the previous version client on the client machines this can be done via GPO, this will enable them to restore previous versions or even deleted versions of there files.


MCITP:EA/SA, MCSE, MCSA, MCDBA, MCTS, MCP+I, MCP

 

[people3]

HI,

Please take note of what GrimR says about taking a backup off site each night, If there is a Fire, flood or theft, you could lose the lot in one go.

As you don't have massive amounts of data, and chances are a very small amount that changes on a day to day basis, it may be worth considering some kind of remote \ offsite backup. you could get this for less than £350 a year and it would offer a much better disaster recovery option.