MS Exchange backups

Randal, Phil prandal at herefordshire.gov.uk
Sun Nov 25 09:48:48 GMT 2007


A few comments.

Which version of Exchange are we talking about here?

If it is Exchange 2003 you can have multiple storage groups with multiple databases.

This makes a mailbox recovery so much easier as you don't have to restore the whole exchange organisation to get a mailbox back.

Brick-level backups are BAD!  Don't use them:

http://mail.tekscan.com/nomailboxes.htm

The way to get around them is to use the Ed Crowley "Never Restore" method:

http://www.swinc.com/resources/exchange/faq_db.asp?status=questions&faqID=1000&faqname=Exchange%205.5&sectionID=1009&sectionName=The%20Ed%20Crowley%20Never%20Restore%20Method

You might also need to manage your databases a bit better, by, for example, using Mailbox Manager to delete old stuff out of users' "Deleted Items":

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319188

and with pretty pictures from the MS Exchange Team's blog:

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2005/03/21/399807.aspx

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2005/04/11/403574.aspx

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2005/04/18/403819.aspx

Cheers,

Phil

-----Original Message-----
From: mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info [mailto:mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info] On Behalf Of Denis Beauchemin
Sent: 23 November 2007 20:04
To: MailScanner
Subject: OT: MS Exchange backups

Hello all,

I know this is not related to MS, but you guys know so much about everything that I risk the question: what backup solution works with MS Exchange?

The admins responsible for our Exchange server tried Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) and Backup Exec but couldn't backup our 250GB data within reasonable time: it takes about 48 hours to achieve one full backup!  
And this got worse when we added McAfee's GroupShield to the mix...

I think they use Backup Exec's "brick-level backup" to backup to a local disk and then use this copy when they need to restore emails.  They first tried TSM but had to resort to restoring the full email DB whenever they needed to restore one email...

How could we do backups within a reasonable time?  The hw is pretty decent...

Thanks again for sharing your vast experience with others...

Denis

-- 
   _
  °v°   Denis Beauchemin, analyste
 /(_)\  Université de Sherbrooke, S.T.I.
  ^ ^   T: 819.821.8000x62252 F: 819.821.8045


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