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From: RobWW on 8 Oct 2009 15:29
Can I use the SBS 2003 backup wizard with USB drives, create a 5-day
schedule and then rotate out two drives every other day?

Thanks
From: Les Connor [SBS MVP] on 8 Oct 2009 16:00
Hi Rob,

Rotating drives requires a "trick", as SBS03 can't natively manage backups
on drives that come and go.

However, you can do this:

a) connect one USB drive more or less permanently - backup daily to this
drive, letting SBS backup manage the number of copies.
b) connect a second USB drive periodically, and *copy* the most recent
backup to this drive, removing the drive for off-site safekeeping.

If the "however" doesn't suit your needs, then I'll see if I can find the
trick (or someone will beat me to it).

--
-----------------------------------------------
Les Connor [SBS MVP]

"RobWW" <RobWW(a)gmail.com> wrote in message
news:48fsc5hgp2sts3p046dq0vj7canuidk9u9(a)4ax.com...
> Can I use the SBS 2003 backup wizard with USB drives, create a 5-day
> schedule and then rotate out two drives every other day?
>
> Thanks

From: RobWW on 8 Oct 2009 16:12
Les, the problem is that my customer has outgrown their DAT72 tape
capacity and I need to find a quick and inexpensive solution - their
dealership fell victim to last fall's crash. They need to have data
taken off site from the previous day. I thought the SBS backup was
only NTbackup packaged to look differently.

Maybe I can configure NTbackup to do a full backup to drive G (USB)
and schedule this to run every Mon - Fri. in a batch file. What do
you think?

On Thu, 8 Oct 2009 15:00:04 -0500, "Les Connor [SBS MVP]"
<les.connor(a)DEL.cfive.ca> wrote:

>Hi Rob,
>
>Rotating drives requires a "trick", as SBS03 can't natively manage backups
>on drives that come and go.
>
>However, you can do this:
>
>a) connect one USB drive more or less permanently - backup daily to this
>drive, letting SBS backup manage the number of copies.
>b) connect a second USB drive periodically, and *copy* the most recent
>backup to this drive, removing the drive for off-site safekeeping.
>
>If the "however" doesn't suit your needs, then I'll see if I can find the
>trick (or someone will beat me to it).
From: Les Connor [SBS MVP] on 8 Oct 2009 16:43
There are a number of ways to do it, some more manual than others. The more
automation, the more reliable.

Ideally, you would have SBS backup look after this for you, but by switching
out disks it's going to lose track of it's destination for the backup every
time you switch disks.

You might use a variation of this hack:

http://sbs.seandaniel.com/2004/10/sbs-2003-backup-hack_05.html

backup disk 1 = "g"
backup disk 2 = "h"

Schedule as in the hack to change the destination daily. The whole thing
hinges on the correct drive being connected on the correct day, though. This
could easily get out of sync with holidays, foregetfullness, etc., so
reliability may be low.

In my mind, the most reliable way would be as in my first reply; leave one
disk connected, and copy the backup file to other disk(s) that are taken
off-site.



--
-----------------------------------------------
Les Connor [SBS MVP]

"RobWW" <RobWW(a)gmail.com> wrote in message
news:tlhsc59n6bj0oud7mtavnc1ql86skb2knu(a)4ax.com...
> Les, the problem is that my customer has outgrown their DAT72 tape
> capacity and I need to find a quick and inexpensive solution - their
> dealership fell victim to last fall's crash. They need to have data
> taken off site from the previous day. I thought the SBS backup was
> only NTbackup packaged to look differently.
>
> Maybe I can configure NTbackup to do a full backup to drive G (USB)
> and schedule this to run every Mon - Fri. in a batch file. What do
> you think?
>
> On Thu, 8 Oct 2009 15:00:04 -0500, "Les Connor [SBS MVP]"
> <les.connor(a)DEL.cfive.ca> wrote:
>
>>Hi Rob,
>>
>>Rotating drives requires a "trick", as SBS03 can't natively manage backups
>>on drives that come and go.
>>
>>However, you can do this:
>>
>>a) connect one USB drive more or less permanently - backup daily to this
>>drive, letting SBS backup manage the number of copies.
>>b) connect a second USB drive periodically, and *copy* the most recent
>>backup to this drive, removing the drive for off-site safekeeping.
>>
>>If the "however" doesn't suit your needs, then I'll see if I can find the
>>trick (or someone will beat me to it).

From: Jim on 8 Oct 2009 18:17
On Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:29:15 -0400, RobWW <RobWW(a)gmail.com> wrote:

>Can I use the SBS 2003 backup wizard with USB drives, create a 5-day
>schedule and then rotate out two drives every other day?
>
>Thanks


We alternate three USB drives, and have done so for a couple years.
We've recently replaced the 500GB drives with 1TB drives.

As Les said, SBS loses track and gets confused. BUT it always does a
backup, and as such we always have the last "n" backups, where "n" is
the number of drives you're using.

We alternate A and B on Mon, Tue, Wed and Thu, and use drive C on a
Friday.

Works well for us. I fact the last three servers we purchased for SBS
we didn't even buy tape drives.



Jim

PS Can't wait for USB3 ;-)

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