Exchange Backup - machine and store or just store?)
Hello,
I have just taken over our Acronis enviroment and have rebuilt it from the ground up due to the previous admin not using a service account.
Qusetion: I have setup an Exchange Information Store backup to run. Do i also need to backup the Machine which runs exchange? As the information store is large I just dont want to be backing up the same thing twice.
So in a DR situation if i just have the exchange information store will we be safe? Or is it best to backup the full machine (including exchange DB) and the Informaiton store
THanks
Ryan

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Thank you Ekaternia, this information has been very helpful in clearning up the best strategy for our Backup and DR strategy
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Sorry, one more question. With what you said above could I just backup the C drive as a machine? (All applications stored there).
D drive holds the database (its larger 1TB) which I assume is the exchange DB\store. So instead of backing up the whole server C: and D: including DB i could backup the C drive (OS and apps of the machine) and then if DR happened could restore that then resotre the Exhange information store from the seperate backup after into a new D drive?
Thanks
Ryan
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Yes, I think you should be fine with backing up only the system partition assuming the D drive contains only Exchange databases, that will be protected in a separate backup plan.
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I have a question along the same lines here. If my Exchange Server is running in a VM, do I need to install the Acronis agent in the VM operating system to properly backup my Exchange databases? Or should I backup the whole VM using the Acronis Backup on the Hyper-V server?
Thanks,
Rick Hogan
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While both options will bring you to the almost the same result - you'll be able to recover Exchange databases or individual items (only mailbox level for disk backup though), Agent for Exchange and a separate backup plan provide more flexibility in terms of recovery (see What data items can be recovered?). Recovery of Exchange from a disk level backup requires some additional steps to bring the recovered databases/mailboxes online (see Mounting Exchange Server databases) and with a dedicated plan for Exhange you can recover the databases to the original, new path or just a set of files. The same with individual items.
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