There are not "serious issues" with it. Anything that requires manual recovery requires extra care. That applies to using lagged copies for a recovery mechanism. However, lagged copies as a feature can be viewed as a "solution looking for a problem".
Lagged copies were one of the earliest features of E14 to be implemented (most of the ESE work gets done early in the development cycle, this is on purpose). And at that point, it made good sense. And MSIT used lagged copies as one of the ways to avoid making backups (along with multiple DAG copies, etc. etc.). However, as development went on, SingleItemRecovery got implemented, and lo-and-behold - it can provide the same protection as a lagged copy, plus the user interface is trivial, plus it can also remove "plausible deniability" in a couple of situations without requiring a database restore. So... MSIT switched over to SingleItemRecovery and that's what MSFT recommends. I literally am not aware of a single company that has implemented lagged copies - and stuck with the feature. SingleItemRecovery costs a few percent more disk. But disk is cheap - especially when compared to the cost of an Exchange Recovery Specialist's time. So...I have no idea if MSFT will continue supporting lagged copies in the future, or not. But if people aren't using a feature, and it's expensive to support - well, I'd remove it so I could spend my development and support resources elsewhere. Regards, Michael B. Smith Consultant and Exchange MVP http://TheEssentialExchange.com From: Beckers, Shawn (IT Services) [mailto:sbeck...@csbsju.edu] Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2011 4:02 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Exchange 2010 using DAG Backup? Apologies for hijacking this thread, but this reminds me of a statement made to me by a consultant that I've been meaning to verify. I mentioned to him that I was seriously considering using lagged copies to replace our current tape backups. He told me that he had heard there were 'serious issues' concerning restores using lagged copies and that MS itself does not use lagged copies as a backup replacement because of this. He then went on to say that he had heard MS was considering removing the ability to create lagged copies in a future version of Exchange and/or recommend the practice no longer be used as a backup replacement. I find this hard to believe, but figured I'd ask those on the list that may have a little more insight. To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: Re: Exchange 2010 using DAG Backup? On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 3:12 PM, Jonathan Link <jonathan.l...@gmail.com<mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com>> wrote: Ya know, you really don't provide a lot of feedback about your environment. Or what your needs are. And your need isn't as simple as "we need a backup." If I had a large enough environment, with some satellite offices, I'd think really hard about not running a backup and running a lagged server in the DAG. I don't know if that will work for you, but it's something to consider. On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 2:59 PM, sms adm <sms...@gmail.com<mailto:sms...@gmail.com>> wrote: 3 servers, no lagged copies. Thx On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 2:18 PM, Jonathan Link <jonathan.l...@gmail.com<mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com>> wrote: The classic answer is, "that depends." How many machines in your DAG? Are you running a lagged copy on a member of your DAG? I may be drinking the Kool-Aid, but large enough organizations could easily go without backups with the correct configuration. On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 1:56 PM, sms adm <sms...@gmail.com<mailto:sms...@gmail.com>> wrote: Exchange 2010 using DAG How do you do your backup? Thx in advance --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe exchangelist --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe exchangelist -- smsadm --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe exchangelist --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe exchangelist -- smsadm --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe exchangelist --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe exchangelist --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe exchangelist --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe exchangelist