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Can you do a full system restore from tape?

The customer is about to go to a new server, running Win 2003 SBS. In the past, they have been making a full Ghost image each night (while using an XP computer as their 'server'), but now they want to consider using tape for backup.

Question: Is there a tape 'system' available that is as good as Ghost in terms of being able to restore a complete image to a bare hard drive and get it back up and running, complete with the operating system and everything else--just like it was before the hard drive crashed? TIA

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Scott C

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sasllc

ASKER

No, I should have covered that important point...when you restore from a Ghost image, you must boot from their CD. One difference is that Ghost apparently gets all the info it needs from the image you're restoring from, thus not needing a diskette. But in your case, it sounds like the only extra item Backup Exec needs is a diskette drive and the appopriate diskette. When and how is that diskette made?

The customer is planning to have a 3-drive RAID-5 setup. Do you know if the Backup Exec system can do a full system restore to a RAID-5 array?

Finally, what brand and model tape drive are you using? Have you ever had to restore files and/or a complete system? Has it been reliable? Are you happy with it overall?

Scott C

The IDR information is made nightly. We just back it up to a floppy disk. You could redirect it somewhere else if you wanted to.

As long as the array is setup before you do the restore everything will work fine.

We are using Compaq/HP 110/220 SDLT drives and they work just fine.

We've had to do a restore once and everything went very well. So, yes, I'm very happy overall.

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dovidmichel

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