BLB with a 31GB Info Store? That's a lot of tape.
Here's my rant:
The Top Ten Reasons why William Doesn't recommend Brick-level backups:
10. The only product he's tried it with is ArcServeIT (*shudder*)
9. Brick-level backups should be done in conjunction with regular backups
therefor duplicating the process.
8. Brick-level backups don't clear the transaction logs
7. Brick-level restores (esp of the entire store) are VERY slow
6. Brick-level restores result in loss of Single Instance Storage
5. Brick-level backups do not properly maintain all of the data structures
in the store that you might need for a full restore (at least Computer
Associates product doesn't).
4. The alternative is so much easier and cleaner - deleted item retention.
Set deleted item retention to say 30 days, a little user education and they
can do their own 'mailbox' restore.
3. Regular use of exmerge (to pst files for backup) for important mailboxes
is another alternative.
2. Section 3.11 at: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq_sec3.htm says so
(ok, I don't do everything I'm told either).
1. The archives at the Exchange list at swynk.com are full of Brick-level
horror stories (or Ed Woodrick told me so ;o).
-----Original Message-----
From: Sethi, Ali [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 3:26 PM
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: Brick Level Backups
Hello,
Can someone tell me why Brick Level backups are a bad idea? I have been
doing brick level backups for a while and have not incurred into any
problems. Am I heading for a disaster by continuing to do brick level
backups? My users demand that mailbox be restored without the Exchange
server being down. I do frequently get calls from users accidentally
deleting emails and then frantically calling me to restore them immediately.
What are my alternatives? Email retention? How much disk space would that
require on my exchange server to setup a email retention for 30 days?
In order to skip brick level backups would I need a second exchange server
as a DR server? If that is the case and I setup a local lan with the exact
same domain, service account, site and organization name would it be a piece
of cake to restore a full backup on this server and recover all the data on
tape without any problems??
Exchange 5.5 sp4
Win 2k server
626 mailboxes
31GB Info store, about 100gb on server (Including emc drive array space)
1.5GB of ram. Do you think I need more Ram? I may...
At what point is it a good idea to begin to think about a 2nd exchange
server?
Thanks,
List Charter and FAQ at:
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm
List Charter and FAQ at:
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm
