Windows server 2008 system state backup

Windows server 2008 system state backup with server partition manager tool - MiniTool Partition Wizard Server Edition.

It is known to us, ADDS is the critical component in Windows. If Active Directory goes wrong, the network does't work. . So the backup and recovery of Active Directory is the basis of safety, consistence and compliance.

Windows Server 2008 bring many new functions for Active Directory, two of which is significant to backup and recovery. They are brand-new Windows Server Backup application and production and use of Active Directory Shadow Copy Service snapshot.

Windows Server Backup provide some group policies which allow users control how backup work on server. Thanks to backup rules, users can lower the risk of accessing unauthorized data when performing unauthorized backup. Rules including:

If there is a system backup option, Windows Server Backup will only backup important system volume not do disk backup.

You can not backup storage connected with the local computer and you can not backup the target onto the disk drive connected with the computer and only be allowed onto network share.

Network is not allowed to be a backup target and you are not allowed to backup the target onto any network share.

Optical media is not allowed to be a backup target. When this option is set, Windows Server Backup is allowed to backup the target onto any optical equipment, such as DVD disk drive.

Many people know about NTBACKUP which is removed and replaced with Windows Server Backup through Windows NT 3. 5. This new tool is not a dressed-up NTBACKUP, but a new backup technology.

Windows server backup is the only solution to backup windows server 2008. But it can not take the place of NTBACKUP. The most obvious difference is that windows server backup is only for disks but not for tapes. Users can do backup onto disk partition, network share, USB disks, RAID, image on DVD-ROM and so on. But it can not backup data on tapes. Users can also connect tape recorder on windows server 2008 and copy the backup image files onto tape recorder. However, you need a third party software to complete the backup process.

NTBACKUP is a backup and recovery tool for files while Windows Server Backup is mainly for disk partitions. Windows Server Backup will recognize the disk source as a group disk partition and disk partition as collection of disk partition. It will be much more efficient than backup file by file system. Backup in partition allows to do incremental backup in block-level with disk shadow copy service snapshot and build snapshot on target disk partition to simplify backups and save more space of backup.

Windows Server Backup can make good use of target disk space even in complete backup. For example, users can do many complete backups in one disk partition Because Windows Server Backup use disk shadow copy service snapshot on target disk storing backup image. Snapshot only store changed partition so as to save much space of complete backup. To Recover incremental backup, you need not implement a number of restore operation. Even though snapshot store the difference between every backup, disk shadow copy service enable the complete backup showed.

Note that when users backup the target onto local disk, only target will enjoy the benefit of disk shadow copy service snapshot. Windows Server Backup fail to do disk shadow copy service for backup on DVD or network share.

Another extra benefit is Windows Server Backup will store backup image in Microsoft VHD. Users can hang backup image as disk partition on virtual machine in Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. Browse specific files only if VHD is on virtual machine. You don't have to check which tape the files belong to by tape restoring.