Much like Complete PC Backup in Vista, you can’t back up individual files and folders, only complete volumes. Limited support for writable DVD is provided (no recovery operations for individual files, folders or application data are allowed), along with external USB drives.

Even though bays for removable drives are becoming more common in low-end servers, removable hard drives are expensive compared with tape. While disk-to-disk backup promises a simple, reliable and affordable solution, the lack of portability for offsite backups could be an inconvenience with some hardware. The software is primarily designed for disk-to-disk use tape drives are not supported. Before I address how to work with the new software, it’s important to note that several important features of NTBACKUP have been dropped from Windows Server Backup.

As in Vista’s Complete PC Backup, Microsoft’s virtual hard drive (VHD) format is used to create file-based images of disk volumes.

Windows Server 2008 disposes of the aging NTBACKUP utility and introduces Windows Server Backup, an optional feature that can be installed through Server Manager. There’s some good news for IT managers deploying Windows Server 2008: Backup and Restore has been reworked in this edition to leverage the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and block-level transfers for faster backups, and it also integrates with recovery tools for simplified restoration of files and the operating system.

Iperius recovery environment