Scheduling a Backup Using Windows Server Backup and Allocating Disks in Windows Server 2008



After Windows Server Backup has been installed, if local disks or scheduled backups will be used, a backup must be run to provision or allocate the disks. This can be performed only by running a backup and defining which local disk or disks will be dedicated and managed by Windows Server Backup. If multiple disks will be used to provide offsite backup rotation, all the disks must be available during the creation of the backup.

The external disks that will be used by Windows Server Backup must be managed and completely available to the scheduled backup. Any volumes or data on these disks will be wiped out when the disks are assigned to the backup. This process will create a single NTFS (New Technology File System) formatted volume that spans the entire disk and will set the disk volume label to include the server name, the date and time, and the disk number for each disk. For instance, if disk 1 is assigned to the backup of SERVER1 on October 09, 2008 at 12:00 a.m., the label will be SERVER1 2008_10_09 12:00 DISK_01.

To allocate disks for Windows Server Backup, follow the below steps:

1. Log on to the Windows Server 2008 system with an account with administrator privileges.

2. Click Start and then All Programs and then Administrative Tools and then select Server Manager.

3. In the tree pane, double-click on the Storage node, and select Windows Server Backup.

4. In the Actions pane, click on the Backup Schedule link to start the Backup Schedule Wizard. Selecting the Backup Schedule link is the only way multiple disks can be allocated to Windows Server Backup in one process.

5. Click Next on the Getting Started page.

6. Select the Full Server (Recommended) option button, and click Next to continue.

7. Select the time to run the scheduled backup from the Once a Day or the More Than Once a Day selections, and click Next to continue.

8. On the Select Destination Disk page, click the Show All Available Disks button.

9. In the Show All Available Disks window, check each of the disks that will be dedicated to the scheduled backup, and click OK to save the settings.

NOTE: When multiple disks are assigned to a single scheduled backup, any of the disks will be used and that is not in the control of the administrator. If a disk is removed for offsite storage, the remaining disks will be used for the next scheduled backup.

10. Back on the Select Destination Disk page, check all of the disks that have been added, and click Next to continue.

11. A Windows Server Backup warning window opens requiring confirmation that the selected disks will be reformatted and used by Windows Server Backup exclusively; click Yes to assign the disks for backup.

12. The Label Destination page details the actual Windows disk and the new label. Click Next to accept the labels and continue with the process.

13. On the Confirmation page, verify the settings, and click Finish to save the new scheduled backup and backup settings and to reformat and label each of the assigned disks.

14. On the Summary page, review the results, and click Close to complete the process.

Creating a scheduled backup using Windows Server Backup allows an administrator to automate the backup process, and with the backup and VSS managing the disk, the administrator only needs to verify that backups have been run successfully.