Server Backup - Windows backup not working?

[Stiltskin]

Hi we're having a new server installed soon - Windows Server 2012 R2. We need a backup solution, we've not got a huge amount of data (less that 1TB) as we're a small school.

 

The company is keen for us to use their cloud storage (£1/GB per year) but the ongoing costs aren't ideal for us. I enquired about a NAS solution but they said they had issues with Windows backup locking up the server so would have to switch off the shadow copy/previous versions function.

 

Does anyone have any experience of this problem (if it is a problem)?

I guessing other people do back up to NAS drives, so what solution do they use?

 

Thanks!

[sted]

currently use either a nas box or the older (much cheaper) microserver and macrium backup. Though im looking again at server backup as it can go to vhd and ive found a way of automounting a remote vhd just need time and inclination to do some testing.

[3s-gtech]

You can use a NAS with Windows Server backup:

 

"As of Windows 2008 R2, Windows Server backup only supports NTFS partition. No other file-system is supported as either backup source or target.

 

If the NAS device presents as a NTFS network share over SMB (windows network protocol) then Windows Server backup will allow it to be used as backup target."

 

My plan for WSB backups of my servers is to give them an iSCSI LUN on a large NAS/SAN so that they can format and use the storage as they wish. Currently they're on USB, which is not ideal!