Comments on: Windows Server Backup Sucks

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 14 Nov 2016 13:17:13 +0000

Veeam now has an Endpoint Backup product that may work better. I’ve been impressed with it in my personal machines at least. I haven’t tried it on a server yet though.

By: Keith Page

Keith Page — Mon, 14 Nov 2016 10:20:36 +0000

Completely agree, an HP Proliant wih 24Gb and a USB backup drive. SBS 2011, aka 2008R2, so far, 650Gb is 16% complete after 36 hours. Truly truly a shit product

By: Martin

Martin — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:11:37 +0000

New server, freshly installed. Backup completes at 2GB/minute.
Add 50GB of data ; backup speed now starts at 1GB/min and gradually slows to 0.1GB/minute ..

By: Carlos Gonzalez

Carlos Gonzalez — Tue, 15 May 2012 08:49:10 +0000

It’s frustrating that every couple of months I find myself spending entire DAYS troubleshooting or working around Microsoft bugs like this one.
With MS Server Backup I tried everything, network, USB, local disk, doing specific folders, doing whole volumes and this is what I have found:
I use MS backup for the bare metal recovery because that one seems to work and does not seem that slow.
I don’t want to backup all my virtual machines because that drive is too big and because some of the VMs are only for testing and don’t have to be backed up.
At first I tried MS backup and ran into the problem where it is not compatible with Advanced Format (the newer bigger USB drives). Then I ran into the fact that it is unbearably slow.
I downloaded a backup chain trial based on the comments above and it really is simple and fast. It was taking a while in the “deduplication” stage but it seems that speeds up incremental backups later. I can always turn it off. I also like the fact that I can compress or not and use generic compression algorithms.
Comparison:
150GB
MS Server backup: 1hour 47minutes
Backup chain: 33minutes

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:00:25 +0000

Holy cow, I am glad I am not the only one that is seeing this slowness. I am backing up only about 600gb to a USB drive and it has been going for 9 hours now and states 40% complete. My first reaction was “oh no, I plugged into a USB 1.1 port!” No dice, it is 2.0

This is a one-off backup I am doing to pre-seed DFSR data. I wanted to use Server Backup because that would ensure my file hashes would remain intact. Oh well, I do not have another 9+ hours to wait for this abomination to complete. I am just going to have to use Robocopy instead. Thanks for wasting a night of backup for me on a critical project, Microsoft.

By: Nick

Nick — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 04:16:36 +0000

Disclaimer: I approved the above comment, despite it seeming a bit spammy, only because I have no other answers in alternative backup solutions. Backup Chain’s website looks like it was designed in 2001, but if the software actually works, then it is at least worth sharing here. If anyone has used this software, feel free to post up.

By: Randolph Holmes

Randolph Holmes — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 04:04:59 +0000

First I definitely agree that Windows 2008 Server backup is a huge step back from NT Backup in terms of options and its performance leaves much to be desired as well. So lets talk solutions.

I build using Hyper V in much the same way described here and I use Windows backups ONLY for the bare metal restore of C: on the Hyper V host.
This cuts down the backup time.

So what about backing up the HyperV guests you say???

Check out the program Backup Chain. Its fast VSS aware and can handle your guest servers so you don’t have the headaches of Windows 2008 R2.

The best thing is Backup Chain is not to pricey. I just set it up for a client and had questions. I called tech support and actually got a person who was helpful.

Hope this helps someone else out.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:46:16 +0000

You can try some backup product from Acronis, or someone else, but we have been as equally disappointed with all of the other commercial solutions.
Right now we’re using the built in server backup. Backups take for-fucking-ever, but that is the only answer I have. Oh yeah, and backups will just completely randomly not work for several days, then start working again.
The reliability is about 50/50 as to whether a backup will complete with any amount of success.

This is one of the things that REALLY annoys me in server 2008. The built in backup stuff is absolute dog ass. Give me back ntbackup. I never had issues with ntbackup.

By: cp1252

cp1252 — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 22:01:01 +0000

is there an alternative? this garbage just isn’t going to cut it for me either. Can i instlal the old nt backup perhaps?

By: Boomer

Boomer — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 15:19:33 +0000

Leave it to Microsoft to take 15 years to develop an actually viable, stable product that at least works (NTBackup) – then discontinue it and replace it with the joke that is 2008 Windows Server Backup.

It’s shit like this that makes me hope the zombie hordes of hackers and virus-writers destroy them.