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Jason_Eisel's avatar
Jason_Eisel
Level 4
17 years ago

Differential backups of Exchange IS with GRT

Running fully patched Backup Exec 11d on Windows Server 2003 SP2 and Exchange 2003.
 
I'm currently backing-up our Exchange 2003 Information Store using daily differentials and one weekly full, and enabling GRT.  Does Backup Exec support restoring individual messages from differential Exchange backups?  In the restore selection dialog, individual mailboxes are either missing or not displayed.  This begs my second question:  if Backup Exec does not support restoring individual messages from differential backups, is the Information Store database still being backed-up even though I see no items to restore?
 
Thanks!!
jason
11.x and Earlier
Agents
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
MS Exchange

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  • Ben_L_'s avatar
    Ben_L_
    Level 6
    17 years ago
    Backup Exec will allow you to incremental backups with GRT enabled and restore the individual items. But there are two requirements.

    1. Backup must be done through a policy
    2. Backup must be done to a local ntfs volume.

    This begs my second question:  if Backup Exec does not support restoring individual messages from differential backups, is the Information Store database still being backed-up even though I see no items to restore?

    --Yes, you will just have to restore the last full, then restore that differential backup.
  • Jason_Eisel's avatar
    Jason_Eisel
    Level 4
    17 years ago
    Thanks for the quick reply blipsey, I appreciate it.  So, as I understand it, Backup Exec is not cabable of restoring individual messages from differential Exchange Information Store backups?
     
    EDIT: I just ran an incremental backup of the First Storage Group and tried restoring a message.  However, I received the "No selections exist for this resource" message when I selected the First Storage Group within the restore dialog box.
     
    Exactly, what is the process to be able to restore individual messages?  I followed the process exactly, as per the admin manual.
     
    thanks,
    jason


    Message Edited by Jason Eisel on 02-01-2008 09:51 AM
  • Ben_L_'s avatar
    Ben_L_
    Level 6
    17 years ago
    You are correct with the differential backups.

    As for the incrementals, as long as the backup (full and incremental) is done to disk and is part of a policy then you should be able to restore items from the information store backup.


    Message Edited by blipsey on 02-04-2008 09:26 AM