When is dismount required when restoring Mail Store to First Storage Group?

[Mike_Gorman]

A basic question: Does the live Mail Store (in First Storage Group) always have to be dismounted before restoring there from backup? There seem to be Veritas support examples showing restores of single Outlook items to the live Mail Store database without dismounting. But how far can that technique be pushed? Can I restore a user's mailbox to the live database without dismounting? How about ten mailboxes? What about a hundred? When is the dismount absolutely required?

This is in reference to Exchange 2003 in a Windows Server 2003 DC environment with Backup Exec 10.

Thanks from a nubie Backup Exec user.

[Ajit_Kulkarni]

Hello,


If you want to restrict users from accessing their mailbox then you can just dismount the store in which their mailboxes exists. To dismount a mailbox store, right click on Mailbox Store and click on Dismount Store. However, if you dismount a mailbox store then all the users/email clients whose mailboxes exists in the store will not be able to access their mailboxes. After the restore is over you can remount the store again.


Hope this answers your question.

Regards


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[Mike_Gorman]

That doesn't answer my question. What I am really wondering is, what amount of restoring can be done without a dismount?

Can I restore a user's entire mailbox to the live database without dismounting? Yes/No? Please assume the user is not accessing their mailbox during this time.

How about ten mailboxes? Yes/No? Please assume the users are not accessing their mailbox during this time.

What about a hundred? Yes/No? Please assume that users may be accessing their email wihile this restore is happening.

When is the dismount absolutely required?

Thanks again!

[priya_khire]

Hello,

The dismount is absolutely required if you are running a restore job of the Exchange database.If you dont dismount the db during a restore, the restore will fail.

However in case you have backed up a few individual mail messages or mailboxes, you can restore them without a dismount. Refer to page 1125 to 1135 in the admin guide for Exchange for more information on Exchange restore. Here is the link for the download:

http://support.veritas.com/docs/279401

Hope this helps. Revert with details in case you have more questions on this.

Note : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked �assumed answered� and would be moved to �answered questions� pool.

Regards.

[Mike_Gorman]

Thank you very much for your clear answer.

Based on your answer, we will probably establish a policy where a single mailbox at a time may be restored directly to the primary store without a dismount,

I found some information on Exchange on page 1094 of the admin guide link you provided. Pages 1125-12135 were about a different topic.

Thanks again.

Mike

Message was edited by:
Mike GormanMessage was edited by:
Mike Gorman

[Renuka_-]

Hello Mike,

If you are using Exchange 2003 you have the choice to use the recovery storage which enables restores of storage groups without havng to dismount them:
http://support.veritas.com/docs/264815

Also refer to the exchange restore topic in the admin guide for more details on hox to use this.

NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked assumed answeredand would be moved toanswered questions pool.

[Mike_Gorman]

Yes we are incorporating Recovery Storage Groups in our strategy. The mailstore databases added the Recovery Storage Group must be dismounted before restoring there as well.