BR products and recovery from optical media

I have been spending some time with BR11 Server For Windows.

Initially, like BR10, there was even the most basic things not working Specifically, my requirement was the ability to backup and recover from optical media. This never worked in BR10 perfectly, nowhere near as flawless as ATI9 server for windows

After getting to fiddle w/ BR11 beta versions, the most recent, 11.17217 has been the best, with some new caveats. I am now able to backup/recover to optical media, after 2-3 yrs of having to downgrade all my BR10 licenses to ATI9.
However, not too happy with the non-functional "do not ask for first media" setting, which still spits out the disc tray for the already-inserted disc. Previously, it would ask for the last disc FIRST, and on 17217, it actually now asks back for the 1st disc, as it had previously. These are minor setbacks. A bigger gripe is that it forces you to use the LINUX GUI. Yes, you can change the volume representation, but thats not the point; my drives do NOT show up on LINUX GUI. Quick fix for this however (and not the point either; it should work WITHOUT WORKAROUNDS), after you install BR11 (which was not so easy either, several hurdles), you can make your own bootable media, and change it to Windows GUI.

And after all this fuss, I do have something good to say... the backwards compatibility works GREAT. I can use BR11 server for windows to recover my backups from 4-5yrs back that used ATI9. One of the limitations of ATI9 is the fact I cant install it to Server 2008. One of the other limitations is that it doesnt support some of todays USB External Hard Drives, but BR11 does.

Not liking the GUI either but... oh well. dont like how its so sensitive, looks like its constantly flickering.

Hi Lamini

Thanks for feedback on ABR11, We had a couple users asking about this a few years back when ABR10 came out so it’s good to know things are working allot better with ABR11.

Not to sound rude but would you mind explaining why you chose to backup to CD’s/DVD’s in preference of mediums such as NAS, removable disk, flash drives or tape for example so I can get a better understanding from your side.

Going on feedback from some of our customers that used backup to DVD/CD’s in the past, we found most of our customers stopped using the medium due to reliability issues, space limitations and having to span over multiple media which was not convenient for backups as well as reporting speed issues when needing to recover the server/system.

It would be good to hear your point of view on this feedback we received over the years and to know your reasons/findings for choosing CD/DVD’s as your preferred backup media over some of the others listed above.

It’s also great to see support is looking into this for you and it would be good to have an update on this support when possible.

All the best.

Datastor,

Regarding the optical media backups, not my call, most certainly not my preferred method. Cant say too much unfortunately, but I was too low in this pole to have a say (read: non-IT personnel making decisions). Things are now changing fortunately (for the better if all goes well, leaving that old-tech behind). Will hope for the best, specially w/ the Server2008 windows/winsxs folders' uncontrollable growth "feature" (and others),... where a basic server2003sp2 (and other apps) fit on a single dvd, a server2008r2 sp1 now takes up easily 2 DVD-DLs (and other apps) (max compression; uncompressed=~25gb!!!)... making for even longer backups/recoveries.

Hi Lamini

Love your comments and humorous side. Thanks for the feedback and comments, understand completely and appreciate the time replying on this and feedback you have posted.