Configuring backup - Infostore only vs Infostore,mailbox,public fldrs 1

[molecul3]

Hi all,

Can someone give me a brief explanation of what are the pros and cons of backing up (or from a restore perspective):

1. Information Store, Mailbox and Public folders

vs

2. Information Store only

I heard that option 1 would give you the ability to restore individual mailboxes or emails but actually is not so efficient in terms of space saving as the Info Store actually contains all Mailboxes and Public folders and so it would be sort of duplicating the process.

Also, it would be good if you could give me an idea of what is the general consensus when configuring Exchange backups. Do more ppl use Option 1 or Option 2. I know it is a VERY general question...

Thanks in advance

 

[58sniper]

Option 1 is referred to as a brick level backup. No reason to use it. You'd essentially be backing up the data twice. Set your Deleted Item Recovery time ("DIRT") to something between 14 and 30 days. The users can restore their items themselves during that time. If it's further out that than, restore the database to the Recovery Storage Group and get the data from there.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[ShackDaddy]

When you mention Option 1, are you talking about those two sub-areas under Information Store in NTBackup, or are you talking about the actual file structure?

Either way, Pat is right: just select Information Store, and make bigger DIRT! The bigger your DIRT, the less likely you are to have to restore mailbox items for a user. The tradeoff for a big DIRT is that your database holds more deleted items at a time, so your store may grow more sharply in size for a couple of weeks, then level off to trend the same way it had been....

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net

 

[molecul3]

Thanks Pat and Dave.

Yes, I guess Option 2 is the way to go but in saying that, you will need enough disk space to actually be able to mount the restored info store correct? So if storage becomes an issue during restore, nothing can be done?

 

[ShackDaddy]

Technically you could put the Recovery Storage Group on an external drive for the duration of the recovery operation, so there's no requirement that it has to be restored to the same drive as the existing production DB.

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net

 

[58sniper]

Dave's right. No performance issue since end users wouldn't be hitting that RSG. You should ALWAYS have enough space for the RSG regardless of which option you choose.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[GeorgeTuk]

I use your option 1 because I have the space but also because the users delete stuff from Public Folders on a too regular basis so it is easier for me to restore, unless somebody knows of a way of restoring items off Public Folders using DIRT?

 

[ShackDaddy]

Outside of using some fancy 3rd-party backup products, public folder restores can be a real pain.

One option is to use something like this:

http://www.diditbetter.com/add2exchange.aspx

to mirror the PFs you care about to an actual mailbox, but schedule the sync to only happen at certain intervals, so that you can use that special mailbox as a restore solution for individual PF items....

Or take away the ability for individuals to delete items from the PF, and have one user do maintenance on them one day a week, perhaps just moving certain objects to a subfolder for later automated deletion...

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net