Back Up Scenarios in WS 2008 - Part 2

You can't back up individual files or folders with Windows Server Backup. You can't even do this from the WBADMIN command-line tool. Heck, even Vista has a file backup utility, such as it is. We know disk space is cheap these days, but surely Microsoft doesn't think we want to back up everything on a volume every time we create a backup? This omission clearly falls into the "what were they thinking?" category.

To be fair, I should mention that you can restore a single file or folder from a full-volume backup. But that doesn't help you if you just need to back up a particular folder, and you're in a hurry. You're going to have to back up the entire volume that contains that folder in order to be able to recover it later.

If the lack of any file- or folder-based backup capability is a dealbreaker for you, you'll need to start shopping for third-party software. Of course, even if you purchase a file-oriented backup tool, you can still use the Windows Server Backup program for image backups - if you don't mind learning, using, and supporting two backup utilities.

Exchange. Windows Server Backup can't make streaming backups of Exchange. Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager can, but despite the fact that Windows Server Backup is also a Volume Shadowcopy Service-based tool, it doesn't include an Exchange requester.

Back Up Scenarios in WS 2008 - Part 1

Windows Server 2008 Backup and Restore

Final thoughts on Starter GPOs...at least for now