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SBS Backup Software

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  • Software
  • Backup
  • Servers
  • Business Computing
Last response: in Business Computing
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April 16, 2013 1:26:55 PM

Hi all.

Just looking for some ideas and suggestions. I work at a local IT support business and as such look after several other businesses in our area. We have several SBS servers running Exchange and/or SQL (ranging from SBS2003 to SBS2011). Also a couple of full Server 2003/2008 systems. The majority also use Active Directory.

Recently I have begun looking into improving our backup routine to make it faster to recover from disasters. We had a server go down with a failed hard drive not long ago. Although none of the data was lost it still resulted in us working through the night to re-install it, copy all the data back on, reconfigure shares etc.

This got me thinking about adding a drive imaging backup to our routine. This way in the event of drive failure we can simply push the image onto a new drive and be running again within a few hours. It also allows for "rolling back" the system if any disastrous changes are made.

In summary I am looking for software which...

- Takes drive images on a schedule and can restore to another HDD if necessary.
- Must be done using VSS or another method which does not require stopping any processes or restarting the server.
- Does full backups (not just differential or incremental)
- Restore to dissimilar hardware is not essential but would be a very nice bonus.
- If we could restore/extract individual files from the image that would be great. For example if a Word document got deleted -> retrieve it from the image. Again this is not essential as we have other backup routines in place which should cover this but extra backup is never a bad thing.
- Ideally costs under £200 per licence, cheaper is better.
- Only need software for the server. Backing up workstations is not essential and I can imagine will increase the cost drastically.

I have already looked at Acronis and Shadow Protect. They both seem perfect solutions but are far too expensive. We deal with small, local businesses (mainly 5-15 users) and getting them to pay for backup software is difficult.

Anyway, this post is getting very long. I thank you in advance for any suggestions/advice.

More about : sbs backup software

April 16, 2013 1:32:24 PM

A lot of what you want can be accomplished using virtualization.
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April 16, 2013 1:40:14 PM

Virtualization is something I would love to get into but have very limited knowledge in.

If starting from scratch with a new server I'd be tempted to virtualize it - but converting an already running system? How difficult would it be for example to take a fully functional SBS2011 server running Exchange and AD then make it virtual. With minimal downtime of course.
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April 16, 2013 2:24:27 PM

I used Terrabyte's "Image for Windows" on an installation of Server 2008, because it was much, much, much cheaper than Acronis or anything else. We used it to make a full image backup of the operating system, then after the initial full image backup we made incremental backups. It uses VSS, works on Microsoft Server operating systems and, best of all, is under $40.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-windows.htm

You can also try it for 30 days before you have to pay for it.

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April 17, 2013 12:29:34 AM

Thank you I shall certainly look into that.

I have also been looking at Paragon Hard Disk Manager 12 Business - http://www.paragon-software.com/small-business/hdm-busi...

It seems to do everything I require and at a reasonable cost of $179/£115. Could be what I'm looking for but has no trial! Anyone used it or heard about it?
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April 18, 2013 5:51:16 AM

To convert a running system to a virtual environment you do what is called P2V (Physical to Virtual). The conversion time depends on the speed of the hardware in question and the total size of the files to be converted.
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