Live Backup with Volume Shadow Services??

[pogi05]

We currently have Symantec 10.d and one main server running windows 2003. Backups are performed nightly using an external LTO Tape drive. We've just recently added a second file server and need to back it up monthly on a seperate tape. I have it set up to be able to be backed up with the remote agent from the main media server.

There is no way to perform two tape back-ups in the same night (no one is in the office to switch tapes), so the monthly back-up would have to be performed live (during 8-5) operating hours. I've been trying to look at Volume Shadow Copy Services as a means to do it: Yet, from my understanding, the native VSS service with 2003 does a Copy-First-On-Write? Meaning it won't be a complete copy, just a copy of orginal blocks of volumes before changes were made, correct???

Will I be able to perform a live (FULL) backup of a server using VSS??

Thanks in advance,

Chris

 

[steveot]

VSS used a cobination of a FULL then diff on the schedule you have on the volume. Basically VSS take care of it self and there are no real whitepaper from microsoft on how it works. Its no a disaster recovery solution either.

 

[pogi05]

I guess my question is: Is backing up Shadow Copies using Backup Exec comparable to backing up the network shares directly? (Minus of course the time between the taking of the Shadow Copy and the backup).

Thanks,

Chris