Need arcserve selections for SBS 2003

[Guff666]

(This is a cross post from the SBS forum. Apologies)
Hi all
I've been tasked with correcting the Arcserve backup jobs that a previous "admin" had set-up on a client's SBS 2003.
The selections make no sense at all, so I want to start again.

I am considering a GFS backup policy Month Full/Week Diff/ Daily Incremental as there is approx 250GB in use on the box. It will all go to a NAS. I'm not sure how to approach the selections though.

Does anybody have a proven policy for an SBS 2003 with selections? I am particularly concerned about backing up the entire server and then the exchange bit as well, rather than doing them separately. Any advice would be welcome as this is not my area of expertise.
Guff

 

[davidmichel]

I don't see the point in using GFS if the backup is to disk.
I'd use just a plain rotation to either FSDs or a deduplication device.
"proven policy" hah!
there is no one proven policy, it all depends upon the data to be backed up.
How often is there a change in data and of how important it is.
For most cases I see nothing wrong with having all the data in one job. You can set it up to use multiple streams if time is an issue.

 

[Guff666]

Thanks for that.
I can see the reasoning regarding GFS: I guess it doesn't make a lot of sense if it's all B2D.
Excuse my ignorance, but what does FSD stand for and what do you mean by a deduplication device?

 

[davidmichel]

FSD = File System Device
1 FSD = 1 tape
The Device Configuration utility is used to setup a directory as a FSD.

When ARCserve backs up to disk it is either to a FSD or a deduplication device. Dedup was added in 12.5

For example a simple 5 day rotation job that backs up to tape will need 5 tapes to backup to.

To do that same job to disk you would need either 5 FSDs, or just append to the same one and overwrite weekly or whenever it fits best for you.

 

[Guff666]

OK Ta
The customer is on Backup Exec 10d. As far as I can see, it doesn't use this terminology.

 

[Guff666]

I've just realised that I'm still in the wrong forum. Please accept my apologies.