Backup Copy Exchange Archive

[andylad9]

Hi Everyone,

I’d appreciate some help getting my head around creating restore points for archival purposes with Backup Copy. It will be for our Exchange server.

I would like to create some archive restore points over a 6 month period.

The server is backed up nightly with 30 restore points. Backup Copy (sent off-site) set to copy every 1 Day, keeping 60 restore points with 6 monthly points for archival.

Am I right in thinking this mean I can:
-Restore items/server to any last 30 restore points from backup job
-Restore items/server to any last 30 restore points from backup job and then the 30 before that from copy job.
-Restore to only a single point every month for last 6 months (first Sunday)

I realise this might not be the best approach to start so I thought I’d seek some help and recommendations.

Appreciate the assistance.

Thanks

Andy

[foggy]

-Restore items/server to any last 30 restore points from backup job
-Restore items/server to any last 30 restore points from backup job and then the 30 before that from copy job.
-Restore to only a single point every month for last 6 months (first Sunday)

Correct, your settings allow to restore exactly how you've described.

[andylad9]

Thanks Foggy. I appreciate the clarity it's certainly helped. Couple more questions...

- If I include 1 weekly to this backup copy job, I assume this gives me a weekly point over the whole 6 months period (24 points in total) and still my 6 monthly points?

- If I wanted to recover a mailbox from 5 months ago I'd have the choice of either month 5 and 6 or each week within month 5?

- Are these archival points just a normal restore point for that specific day?

- What happens on the days when the restore point, the weekly and the monthly are all scheduled to take place/clash on the same day?

- Any suggestions on forecasting the storage requirements on this setup. 30 points currently is 3.5TB

Cheers

[foggy]

- If I include 1 weekly to this backup copy job, I assume this gives me a weekly point over the whole 6 months period (24 points in total) and still my 6 monthly points?

With just 1 weekly you will have a single weekly restore point at any time. To have 24 of them, you need to set the number of weekly restore points to keep to 24.

- If I wanted to recover a mailbox from 5 months ago I'd have the choice of either month 5 and 6 or each week within month 5?

With 24 weeklies, yes.

- Are these archival points just a normal restore point for that specific day?

Each GFS restore point is a separate full backup as of the day it was created.

- What happens on the days when the restore point, the weekly and the monthly are all scheduled to take place/clash on the same day?

The same restore point will be marked as both weekly and monthly.

- Any suggestions on forecasting the storage requirements on this setup. 30 points currently is 3.5TB

Please use this tool for space estimation.