Restore Exchange 2010 DB as flat file to alternate file server

[evargas]

Hi all,

Is there a way to restore the Exchange 2010 DB files to an alternate location as a flat file?

here is my setup

backup servers are Solaris 10 running NBU 7.5.0.3

Exchange servers are Windows 2008 R2 running NBU 7.5.0.3

we are backin up the Exchange via DAG

we need to recover large DB but we don't want to use the RDB method but restore the db files and logs to a file server that has enough space for these files.

is this posible? what are the steps to do this? 

BTW we backup the exchange nodes as standard clients but we exclude all the live db files.

Thanks

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

Not possible.

Exchange agent backup can only be restored to another Exchange server.

Think of water in a bucket - an agent backup stores the water. You need Exchange to provide the bucket.

[evargas]

Thanks Marianne

I am just making sure I don't have other options.

[Paul_Ontrack]

I realize this is very late, but it is possible with third-party solutions such as PowerControls Extract Wizard, by emulating Exchange or by extracting directly from the backup.

[Lowell_Palecek]

Sorry I didn't see this 3 years ago.

It's not officially possible, but if you restore to an RDB and don't commit (mount) it, you will in effect have copied all the files from the backup image to your file system. I hope that's enough to overcome your aversion to using an RDB.

You don't have to explicitly exclude the Exchange data files from a Windows-NT backup. That's the default behavior. You wouldn't want to use the files backed up as files, because the database would not have been quiescent.