Backup Methodology Advice - Echo Server & Win2K3

All,

Having tested the trial version of TI Echo Server I've now purchased the product - although an outstanding issue exists with RAID recognition using the RescueCD I'm confident Support will supply a workaround or custom ISO in due course.

My question is one of recovery methodology. My current disaster recovery plan provides 3 options.

1. In the event of a disk hardware failure RAID1 should switch to the second drive.

2. If a corruption to OS occurs, and assuming the daily disk image to the Secure Zone is unaffected, the F11 rescue option will be attempted. This image includes both C and D partitions of the disk.

3. Two other scheduled backup tasks run each morning. Partitions C and D are imaged separately to external HD. The RescueCD will be used to restore one or both external images to recover the system.

I'm wondering if there is an advantage to imaging C and D separately at option 3 or if I could just image the disk to external drive as in option 2. This will reduce the number of tasks run by one; also when the Duplicate Destination option is reincluded into the Echo Server build a single task can be used to image the disk to Secure Zone and external HD at the same time.

Any thoughts?

 

Hello Roman1,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Server Disk Backup software

Your plan seems to be solid. I've one note about the last option. If you're going to back up both partitions then there is no reason to perform two separate backups (please also note that you're backing up your partitions one-by-one you're not backing up your MBR). So I would suggest you to choose full hard drive image.

Thank you.
--
Michael Levchenko

 

Good call. I modified the tasks and am now running just two. The first images the disk to the Secure Zone, the second images the disk to external USB. Additionally, to my surprise, both images were successfully completed as scheduled tasks. I've been receiving errors running scheduled tasks however they run fine if started manually (https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=200730&highlight=roman1). I'll see how they go tomorrow morning but it's looking good so far.