>>We do a full backup of all systems every night, so extra tape costs by doing BLBs are immaterial.
>At my last job, I did full backups each night as well. extra tape costs are immaterial for you? Well, I had 8 servers
>running 10-60GB stores. Not immaterial at all.
You misunderstand - adding the contents of all the BLB mailboxes to the nightly backup still fits on one nightly tape, so I don't need to purchase extra tapes. I don't have different tapes for Exchange vs other LAN backup needs.
>>Of course. Never had a job where it was anything but, on any subject (not just recovering email).
>Well, that's fine. I prefer to spend my time going forward, not backwards. A little user education goes a long way.
It can. Obviously, you've never worked for some of the people I have .. :-)
>>If you have the space on your backup media for all users, why exclude some?
>Mostly because I consider it a waste of resources and not the best way to administer Exchange in terms of backup and
>recovery. The Exmerge idea was just an alternative.
I don't get to decide if backing up individual email is a waste of resources. Wish I could. :-)
>I concede some might want to have this backup method. I find it a waste of resources mostly. Having to backup the store
>multiple times. The size of the BLB backup is significantly greater than the store backup. I'd be running backups for
>hours for almost no gain. No thanks.
>Glad it works for you, though.
Actually, I've never had to restore a single mailbox, but I know that that was one of the main questions I was asked, when seeking to purchase a backup solution - can we restore someone's email if we had to? Not everyone's - that's a DR issue. Like any business, they wanted to be able to do both. One day I'll test it, with my "Test" email account, and see how it works.
List Charter and FAQ at:http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm