Hi,

 

Currently running SBS2003 SP2 and using NTBackup for M-F nightly backup.  I have the backup file written to an internal backup drive, and then later a script copies the backup file to a 70GB REV tape.  Every Friday I do an ASR backup.  We've been cycling thru 5 tapes for the nightly backup, one goes offsite with me each night, the others in a fire safe in the office.  Then a monthly archive to REV tape.

 

The problem is that we've outgrown the 70GB REV tape.  My plan is to keep the nightly backup to internal drive, then copy to an external Firewire/USB2.0 drive.  I'll have 3 of them set to "optimize for quick removal" and rotate them server-offsite-firesafe.  Also, since SBS takes a little extra effort to restore from USB, I plan to keep the REV drive and do a separate nightly backup of just the OS/Apps/Exchange drive.  I'll rotate these as I currently do, with ASR backup every Friday.

 

Here's how my drives are set up:

 

Drive 1

C: OS

G: Exchange

H: Apps

 

Drives 2/3, RAID 1

K: Users (redirected My Documents)

P: Project Documents

and then 8 other partitions for accounting, admin, HR, IT, marketing, etc.

 

Drive 3

J: Pagefile

F: Shadow Copy

L: Backup

 

So, my questions are:

 

(1) Anyone see any problem with using external drives?  I've just run a test using my personal 2.5" drive in a USB 2.0 enclosure.  Every time I plug it in, it grabs the same drive letter (next available).  I'm assuming multiple drives will grab the same letter and not have a problem with scripts.  Good or bad assumption?  I've also copied 50GB of music from the drive to server and back to drive, and no problems there.  I'm planning to use the firewire connection for better sustained throughput.

 

(2) Is it redundant to select both the G: drive and First Storage Group?  Looking at the log files, it appears that grabbing G: gets everything that First Storage Group gets and then some.  However, if I ever had to do a restore of the Exchange partition, will NTBackup be specifically looking for First Storage Group as a restore item, or will it allow me to browse to the info stores under G:?  In short, do I need to back up G:, or First Storage Group, or both?  Space will no longer be an issue, but this is one of those things I'd just like to know, rather than doing it all just because I can.

 

(3) Similarly, is it redundant to select the C: drive if you're doing a weekly ASR plus daily system state?  The only time I've had to restore, I hosed the OS and needed to restore that partition only.  I used the ASR method, browsed to the ASR file on the previous Friday REV tape, rebooted into DS safe mode and restored the system state from the previous night backup tape, and all was good.  I did not restore the previous night's C: partition backup, the Friday ASR file plus previous night system state was enough to bring it back to where it had been.

 

(4) I've read some people saying System State and Exchange should be backed up separately from everything else.  Is this necessary with SBS, or only with standalone Server 2003 + Exchange?  I've been doing everything in one shot, with the understanding that SBS NTBackup w/ VSS will handle it fine.  As noted above, I've successfully restored the C: partition.  I've never needed to restore Exchange, though.  Log files do show Exchange being successfully backed up, both the G: drive and the First Storage Group.  No system event errors during backup.

 

Thanks in advance for your help.