Backing up and restore

[chris6user]

Does anyone out there have a tried and trued method for backing up and restoring Exchange 5.5 on a SCSI Perc RAID 5 server? The reason I ask is we are using some pretty old software for back ups and it recently stopped working properly. It no longer will back up our 2+gig edb file. I just want to be prepared in the event that something goes wrong and also get some recommendations on good backup software for Exchange Server.

Thanks in advance.

Pikk

 

[ceejay07]

Hey Chris:

I don't think it matter much that it is scsi. As long as you have a backed up of the .edb file; you can restore it to any location (new exchange server if you have to recreate one). As far as backup software goes, I have been using Arcserve 2000 for the past year and a half and I don't have any problems with it. On some servers I do brick level backups and on some I do information store backups. But for you it may not matter much (brick level as opposed to Information Store) your information store seem to be pretty small; mine is over 20 gigs. So Brick Level backups help.

Hope that was informative

CJ

 

[Grenage]

We use Backup Exec for Exchange - been running for just over a year now with no errors.

 

[chekcol]

We used Backup Exec with the Exchange Agent at my last job and currently using Legato with the Business Suite Module for Exchange. Both seem to work okay.

 

[Gersen]

We don't have much of a budget for software, and didn't buy the Exchange option for Backup Exec. For emergencies, I backup the IMCDATA directory to another folder, and if need be I can rebuild the whole site from that. A little work with ISINTEG and the Consistency Adjuster and I'm back in business.

Note: before trying to restore an offline Exchange backup, make sure your Service Pack level is the same as it was when you did the backup!! Wasted a whole weekend on this one once...

Gersen

 

[Gersen]

Correction! I said I backed up the IMCDATA directory, when I meant the MDBDATA directory. Doh!