Backing up a Windows Server and user files.

Question

I'm trying to help out a friend who owns a small business with setting up a backup for his files as well as a web server. The file volumes are quite small and the traffic to the web server isn't that much either (it isn't his main revenue). So I was thinking along the lines of a Windows server, where i can run IIS and manage file backups as well. I, of course, want to backup the server as well. I also have the following constraints to take in to account:
* None of the data can be stored in the cloud, it must be stored on premise, due to legal constraints.
* Need to run an IIS (so no Linux)
* It's a low cost project for a small business.

In summary I need to solve the following:

1. Continuously backup the user files.
2. Backup the server.
3. Keep offsite backups.

I was thinking that this can be solved in the following way:

1. On the server expose a shared volume and use Backup using File History.
2. Use Windows Server Backup to backup the server and the volumes containing the user files.
3. Use several external drives for the backups. One or more of these can then be stored offsite.

Does this seem like a viable solution?

Some other questions that comes to mind:

1. Can the files from the backup be copied to another computer? If something happens of he switches computers.
2. Can I use thumb drives for storing the server backups? There are quite cheap ones that can store up to 1 TB.

There are probably more things to consider, but any help at all is appreciated.

Answer 1

Hi, I'm Elise, a fellow user like yourself and I'd be happy to help with your issue.

When it comes to server backups the goal is usually that you can restore the backup to another device quickly and easily if needed, along with if a user accidentally deletes a file, you can restore it etc,

I would recommend looking at third party backup solutions, that can take images of the device and can be restored quickly and easily.

If you use file history you will basically have to reinstall Windows server and reconfigure it all in the event of a failure, then restore the files from file history. It won't be painless in a failure situation.

Please let me know if you need any further assistance.

Kind Regards,

Elise

Answer 2

Well, using software for creating an image could be an alternative. I still need to backup the users local files to the server. That is where file history comes in. Creating images is more of an answer to question 2 (Backup the server). Any thoughts on how to accomplish that? I'm particularly concerned by the fact that so many people have trouble with restoring files to a second machine.

Answer 3

There are lots of third party tool and service which can do this with varying degrees of features.

Often the process is it will create a backup image, and if you need to restore you boot to a USB installer and it re-images a new device.

Or some services will image the server to a cloud server and you can run from there. (Appreciate that might not be useful for your scenario)

Again there are so many services which offer this you would need to have a look and see what your needs vs the cost of the product would be.

In my experience there aren't many who rely on just the build-in Windows service such as File History for this. That is really just intended for users who delete or change files by accident and need to get back to a previous version.

I would strongly recommend a backup service which takes an image, as this will offer a whole server backup, and usually a granular file level backup as well (for the user deleted file by accident scenario)