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Microsoft Releases Public Beta of Data Protection

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the safety-first dept.

Torrey Clark writes "Microsoft has released the public beta of its disk-to-disk backup product, Data Protection Manager. The product is designed to make backups easier than simply backing up to tape. Disk-to-disk backup completes images in significantly less time, meaning much less downtime for systems during backups."

5 of 262 comments (clear)

  1. Rsync works fine for us by Tanami · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We've been doing disk-to-disk for a year or so now using rsync's --link-dest feature to create apparently complete mirrors each night, but with only those changed files actually occupying disk space (beyond that of a symlink). Makes restoration an absolute breeze compared to tape, but I'm not sure if this M/S effort does the same? *runs off to look*

    1. Re:Rsync works fine for us by gtoomey · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I rsync from my web server in USA to Australia using my ADSL connection.

      Rsync usually reports a 1000 fold speedup over a dumb copy.

  2. Re:I dont understand. by jmcmunn · · Score: 4, Interesting


    Thank you...you show me the hard drive that holds as much as my tape drive does, then we'll talk. And I certainly don't have room in the drive tower for another 7 drives.

  3. Re:I dont understand. by nojayuk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Disk to disk backup would require the system to be shutdown, drive added, removed and reboot, configure etc.

    Unless they are talking about removable media like CD/DVD/USB devices, this does not make sense.

    There are such things as USB hard drives which appear as volumes within the Windows OS, you know. I use such a unit with a cheapo exchangeable ATAPI cartridge bay hacked into it for backup. I call it "tepid-swap"; it's not true hotswap as I have to "stop" the USB device before switching it off but I certainly don't have to shut down the entire system to change the drive fitted in the bay. After I power it up again Windows 2000 automatically recognises the new disk, no reboot necessary.

  4. It can be a bit more complicated than that by WARM3CH · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Disk-to-disk backup? In fact, I (ie. my computer!) do it every night. Simple copy command? I think that does not cut it. I'm in a tight development cycle and each day write a lot of code, documents and receieve/generate lots of data files. I need to back up all important data but surely I don't need to make backup of the executable files, temp files, OS system files and such. The solution that I use is simple: I have two hard disks in my computer. The files that I need to have back-up from, are scattered on these two drives. Now, I have made a BackUP directory on each one of these drives and put a copy of all important files in them. So, I have 3 copies of every important files: the original, and two back-ups. In case a hard-disk goes banana, I always have a copy of all important files on the other one. I run the back-up every night. Just need to copy the files that has been changed or the whole new directories made during the day. So the problem is: I need two desinations for each source. I need to be able to select which directories or even which files to back-up (or not to backup) and I need to check which files have been changed or which new files (or directories) have been created. I need to be able to schedule the back ups for midnight and I need to forget about all these details in practice as I have to focus on my work :) How I did it? Well, I tried a script in the beginning but found it difficult to manage over the time and it was very tedius. Now I use SyncBack which is a freeware program with all these features that I need (and more! like FTP and compression to Zip, etc.). QED.