Hello all,

This is an important message for users of the rdx and REV drives on Server 2008 and the Image Backup (aka Windows Server Backup).

BackupAssist does support the rdx and REV devices as a destination device. [Note that the built-in Windows Server Backup (and the SBS wizards) does not detect these devices as valid backup destinations.]

This means that using BackupAssist, it is possible to backup to these devices for the purposes of doing a bare-metal full restore, or for restoring complete volumes.

However, the operating system sees these devices as “Removable drives” meaning that it will backup to these devices just like it backs up to a DVD drive – by compressing the VHD file.

It turns out that compressed VHD files cannot be mounted, and therefore you cannot restore individual files and directories, or individual applications, from within the standard Windows Server Backup restore wizard.

This is a limitation at the operating system level. We have not yet found a way to work around this limitation (but we’re trying).

Note: when backing up to USB hard drives, or local hard drives, you can restore individual files and folders and also applications.

So in summary:

When backing up to REV/rdx:
– Compression is on
– Can restore from bare metal
– Can restore entire volumes
– Cannot restore individual files and folders
– Cannot restore applications

When backing up to USB HDD:
– Compression is off
– Can restore from bare metal
– Can restore entire volumes
– Can restore individual files and folders
– Can restore applications

There are two workarounds for this scenario:

1. If you need to restore individual files and directories, use a USB or eSata connected removable hard drive as your backup device.

2. As an alternative strategy, use your REV / rdx drives with the File Replication Engine to backup your file system. You can achieve extremely good results with this method – giving you version history on your files that’s far better than can be achieved with drive imaging. Then have another job that will back up your system using the Windows Imaging Engine and enable you to restore quickly from bare metal.

Read more about how you can do this here: http://www.backupassist.com/SBS/sbspresentation.html

I’ll post more about alternative backup strategies in the near future.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 27th, 2008 at 10:11 am and is filed under Developer, Support. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.