Affordable Backup solution for Exchange

[Eddiefdz]

Hello,

I am looking for an offordable piece of software that will backup my Exchange 2003 box. What do you guys recommend? I would prefer somthing affordable as long as it gets the job done and restoration is easy. I have seen several apps for sale on the net but i am not sure which one to go with. Any recommendations would be great.

Thanks.

Eddie Fernandez
CCNA, Network+, A+, MCP

 

[nsantin]

NTBACKUP. It's built in, it's exchange aware, and its free.

 

[Eddiefdz]

Is that what you are using as your Exchange backup solution? I want to make sure that it is proven and somthing that people are using.

Thanks,
Eddie

Eddie Fernandez
CCNA, Network+, A+, MCP

 

[mofusjtf]

NSantin is right, NT Backup is the most cost effective solution you will find.

I've used it a lot with SBS server and had to perform several restores of Exchange from the NT Backup file. It is easy to use and works great.

Justin

 

[Zelandakh]

There's a company called Microsoft that use it. I think they make software or something?

ntbackup also underpins Symantec's Backup Exec believe it or not.

Its the @ command line stuff to schedule it that puts people off but it works perfectly as a backup app. Been using it here for years.

 

[WhoKilledKenny]

You might want to throw in your requirements. Are you looking at being able to only restore Exchange databases or are you looking for brick-level backups where you can restore down to the mail-box level. This will influence the vote...

Jesse Hamrick

http://www.powershellpro.com

 

[ShackDaddy]

If you want to also include an online-offsite backup, you could use iBackup.com's Professional service. I use it for one client and pay $14.95 a month for 5gb of online storage. It would be $30 for 10gb. It is Exchange-aware as well.

The only wonky thing about it is that it isn't compatible with Recovery Storage Groups: you'd have to use it to restore the production mail store and not use it to recover a mailbox. But that's why you also do a local backup with NTBACKUP for that sort of thing.

I've also used the Ahsay online backup service, which is a bit better, but not as simple to set up. Iron Mountain sells a good service too, but their prices are exorbitant.

ShackDaddy
Shackelford Consulting

 

[Zelandakh]

If you want to restore to individual mail level you'd do a straight ntbackup of the store then restore it to a recovery storage group then exmerge can get anything you need - a trifle clumsy but it works. The only other options cost money like Quest's Aelita Recovery Manager or OnTrack's PowerControls.

 

[aquila125]

We export our mail to PST's (exmerge) and then use ntbackup to write it to tape. This works great for smaller businesses (since you need the disk space for the PST's)..

 

[Zelandakh]

I hope you are also backing up the information store too!

 

[ShackDaddy]

aquila, doing what you describe, you lose the benefit of Single Instance Storage (SIS). If five users receive the same email (even if it has a large attachment), only one copy is stored on the server, and normally only one copy would need to be backed up. When you export each mailbox out to .pst, all of those emails are duplicated as far as space goes.

Not to mention the fact that without normal full exchange-aware backups, your transaction logs will constantly accumulate and eat up all the disk space on your server. To be honest, your backup solution is one of the worst I've heard of. No slight intended.

ShackDaddy
Shackelford Consulting

 

[Zelandakh]

Mr Shack is saying in 2 paragraphs what I was hinting at. I'm just trying to use fewer words in my responses - one I rejected was "Idea. Bad. Rearrange".

 

[nsantin]

Im sure he already turned on circular logging to supress those strange useless files that are cluttering his hard drive....