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Shawn
Asked: 2011-05-25 10:12:19 +0800 CST

Server Backup Software

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What are you all using for your server backups? We have 95% Windows servers and are looking for new backup software without breaking the bank, if possible. I've been looking at ShadowProtect and greatly enjoy how easy it is to use, but I'm still open to other alternatives and want to investigate as many opportunities as possible. It'd have to back up a variety of servers including SQL/Exchange/File Servers, etc. Not looking for anything cloud based or to backup workstations either, we'll keep the backups on local storage or network storage and eventually in safes. Performance is a factor, I don't want to be slowing down the servers anymore than necessary but our current backups take hours so anything comparable or less than that for a full backup of a server would suffice. Easy management is also important, once its set up it shouldn't need to be looked at more often than to verify backups are working and can restore correctly. Thanks.

windows-server-2008 backup windows-server-2003

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I feel this is a bit of a shopping question, but I will throw in my .02.

    When it comes to backups, identifying what you are backing up (both amount and file type), and how fast you need to get to it, is going to dictate your solution(s). Personally, I love ShadowProtect, for imaging. Sure, you can pull individual files from your backup images, but that's not really what it's meant for.

    If you are not looking to backup to the cloud, you will need a physical destination, such as a tape drive or SAN, as well as software that is Exchange/SQL aware. This could be as simple as NT Backup, or something bigger like Backup Exec.

    Here, we use a combination of imaging on our servers and backing up our VMs to an external drive, as well as using an online backup solution for business critical files and Exchange.

    EDIT: We are a small shop too, and as much as we looked, there wasn't a 'silver bullet' for backup solutions that also comes with peace of mind. Like I mentioned, we employ a few different things, and its not a whole lot of extra work.

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  2. The functionality built into Amanda (a UNIX-based backup solution) that allows it to back up SMB shares is pretty spectacular.

    Plus, Amanda is just an awesome product to start with... and it's free.

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  3. We use Crash Plan Pro, which is managed through an easy-to-use web interface. I haven't seen any difference in performance since we started using it, and it's really cheap. It will also send confirmation e-mails when it runs; it gives you a very detailed report, of what was backed up, how much was backed up, from where and to where. It's awesome as far as I'm concerned. It's also multi-platform (with about 30 mins of work), we use it on our Windows servers, and our servers running linux.

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