Backups

Firblog

Hi anyone recommend backup software to run on Server 2003, to backup SQL database to ext hdd?

Cheers

ObeyTheSuit

Why not just use SQL to run scheduled backups?

uch

You just need to send the backup to the UNC path of the \\Drive\folder

Firblog

Need to backup a program that uses SQL database to manage client data, but which also creates other files, also users create various documents everyday, would like to use a single program to back all this up.

ObeyTheSuit

Just use the in-built backup utility (ntbackup) for the files and the SQL backup for the DB.

Or you can just go buy Veeam or something if you are determined to use a 3rd part utility.

Capt'n Midnight

One Server 2003 server , just use Ntbackup
it can backup to a file and you can copy the file to a different server if you don't like tapes

use a scheduled Ntbackup job to backup the database dumps and logs from the SQL scheduled jobs , turn off circular transaction logs unless you have a good reason not to
you can do full at weekends and differential during the week or whatever
it depends on how far you need to roll back and how long it takes to backup ,

do full backup system drive and system state , weekly or nightly and differential daily so you have something to restore to
stop the sql services and then start them again after the backup



disaster recovery #1 - YMMV
you can install 2003 on a new machine patch up to date and restore from ntbackup over the top , say Y to overwrite all files then restore the data backups , then import the dumps into SQL or whatever you normally do

disaster recovery #2 - YMMV
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx
save file as .vhd and play it back as a virtual machine