IT Errors and Solutions Blog

I have been using Acronis for past 6 months with 2 of my clients.

It is a great backup and recovery product.

Backup and recovery can be done at bare-metal level.

It is also possible to recover single files.

With one client I’m using Acronis on 6 Windows 2003 server and with another client 4 Windows 2003 servers.

Both networks are running Microsoft Exchange 2003, MS SQL Server 2000/2005, NextGen, File Share, Terminal Services, etc.

As a test, I have converted backup to Virtual Disk and in 15 minutes was able to run one of the servers on Windows XP via VMware Player.

I have purchased HDD Loader from IdealStor and using HDD loader instead of tapes.

My total backup of 6 servers is about 500 GB and for 4 servers is little bit over 300 GB.

I’m also very pleased with IdealStor “Teralyte 2000 – TLYTE-2SA”

http://www.idealstor.com/teralyte.html

Also on some of my servers I’m using MozyPro remote backup system.

Originally I thought that it will be a problem with using Acronis in conjunction with MozyPro.

Not a problem at all. I have seen both backup systems running at the same time and completing backups successfully.

If you have any questions, please ask or would like to share your opinion, please register to create a post

12/31/2008

I have been using MozyPro (mozy.com) backup for last 8 month.

My environment… Windows 2003 servers, MS Exchange 2003, SQL Server 2005 and 2000, MS Office files, etc…

I think, it is a great remote backup solution and also price is right.

I only wish it will do all things they are claiming on their web site it can do.

The following is only based on my own experience.

I had problems with backing up MS Exchange 2003 database. MozyPro would do full backup and then it supposed to do only differential backups… But on 2nd or 3rd differential backup, MozyPro would fail and would have to start full backup all over again.

Also, my exchange database wasn’t that big… Under 17 GB. But to make full backup, it was taking 4-5 full days in my environment and it is just too long to do it over and over again…

Finally after struggling for almost 6 month… I gave up and I’m not using MozyPro to backup Exchange database anymore. I just hope, it would change some day…

Another problem I had is backing up files and folders located on network share on different server than MozyPro client is running on… I was getting a lot of different Connection Errors and my backups would fail. After removing network shares from my backup catalog, I got no more errors and backups are running as they should.

Currently I’m using MozyPro on 3 of my production servers. All servers are Windows 2003.

On one server I’m backing up 5 GB, on second 70 GB and 180 GB on my third server.

I have no problem with backing up MS SQL Server 2000 and 2005 files (.mdf and .ldf) while database is in use. Also able to backup any files while in use and being open, including MS Outlook, Excel, Word and Power Point.

Also, tech support, in my opinion, is bad. They would promise get back to you, but you would never hear back from them. The solution for most of problems I had is “…it should work…” and it doesn’t. I asked them few times when fix would be available… and answer was “… in 6 month…” Great… Good thing is… I have primary backup solution in place which is backing up to tape and tape is being taking off site. I’m just using MozyPro as a backup solution to my primary backup solution. My original thought was when I started to use MozyPro, to use it as my primary and sole backup solution, but…

I did find that I can’t fully rely on MozyPro and on MozyPro support team.

All comments and opinions are welcome….

12/09/2007