Disaster Recovery Planning

AD and GPO's are all located in the "System State" which you should be able to leverage thru NTBackup.  If you have backup software (BackupExec 2010 for example) you can backup these items with that software to tape and store offsite.

Use the following link to backup GPO
http://www.petri.co.il/backing-up-group-policy-objects.htm

Back'ing up AD
http://www.trainsignal.com/blog/backup-and-restore-active-directory-on-windows-server-2008

Regards,
Exchange_Geek

I am using the Windows Server Backup that comes with SBS. As far as I can tell, this is RoboCopy.

I would recommend to have one more DC (Non SBS) in your domain so You don' t need to worry about Backup
MS does not recommend to have single DC env

If still you want backup current one list the content u wanted to backup so we will suggest further

LostInWindows: The tools provided in screenshot are native windows tools not anyone else.

You should be good once you have those backups :)

Regards,
Exchange_Geek

Exchange_Geek, The Backup options shown in the Train Signal link do not apply to SBS. There is no role for backup.

What I am looking for is a way to restore the System State and GPO,s from SBS (aka Server 2008 SP2) to something like Server 2012 or Server 2008 R2.

You can use Acronis Backup & Recovery for Windows Server

It comes with an excellent feature called Universal Restore
With that you can restore image of one server to any workstation available without any problem
You can schedule different backup tasks either full backup or incremental backup
Define the target of backup to a remote NAS
You can even mount the image created to copy contents from the backup file

Using the built-in backup of SBS 2008 you CAN restore to different hardware.  The only caveat is that the disk configuration needs to be similar.

I suggest that you test it just to be sure it works for your specific configuration.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

I tried the wbadmin command and it isn't working. I opened a Command prompt as an Administrator. I plugged in a USB flash drive F: and this is the result:

C:\>Wbadmin start systemstatebackup -backuptarget:F:
wbadmin 1.0 - Backup command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2004 Microsoft Corp.


ERROR - Command syntax incorrect. Error: -backuptarget:F:. See usage below.

Usage: WBADMIN START SYSTEMSTATEBACKUP
    -backupTarget:{VolumeName}
    [-quiet]

Runs a system state backup based on the options specified.

-backupTarget   Storage location for this backup. Requires a drive letter
                for the storage location.

-quiet          Runs the command with no prompts to the user.

Examples:
WBADMIN START SYSTEMSTATEBACKUP -backupTarget:f:

C:\>

After this I replace the F: with D: which is the internal data drive and I received the same error.
Help!! How do I fix this??

To enable the system state backup files to be targeted to critical volumes, you must set the value of the AllowSSBToAnyVolume registry entry under the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\wbengine\SystemStateBackup\

Set the value of this entry as follows:
Name:      AllowSSBToAnyVolume
Data type:      DWORD
Value data:      1
Note When this value is set to 1, system state backups to any volume are enabled. To revert to the default behavior, set the value to 0.

Change the above settings in registry, you're error is known and MS has published article on it. Read: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944530

Regards,
Exchange_Geek

I made the registry change and I I get the following output. Does the destination need to be NTFS? Does it need to be empty?

C:\>Wbadmin start systemstatebackup -backuptarget:F:
wbadmin 1.0 - Backup command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2004 Microsoft Corp.

Starting System State Backup [14/08/2012 7:47 PM]
Retrieving volume information...

This would backup the system state from volume(s) Local Disk(C:) to F:.
Do you want to start the backup operation?
[Y] Yes [N] No y

ERROR - Specified backup location could not be found.

Oh, I found it. It needs to be local and NTFS

Cool, work on the backup and provide me good news quickly ;)

Regards,
Exchange_Geek

Awkward to find, but this is the real solution!!
Thanks a lot

Sorry that I missed the full intent of your initial question.  Its fine that you already awarded points, but the true answer is that you need to run the SBS Backup Wizard which configures all of this for you automatically.

I had actually thought this was the link that Exchange_Geek originally provided.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2008/11/03/introducing-sbs-2008-backup.aspx

Creating a full disaster recovery backup on SBS is NOT difficult to do and not hard to find.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

Hello Jeff,
My concern came from the fact that the hardware is getting old and the SBS license is OEM. I didn't know if and how to restore the systemstate to a different OS such as Server 2008 R2 or server 2012. I just wanted to cover myself and have a recoverable backup that I could use to restore to a different OS.

If that is the case, then you really should consider doing a migration NOW.  The last thing you want to do in a disaster recovery situation is to do anything that might cause further delay in getting the system back on line.

What are your plans for recovering Exchange or Sharepoint of you go to a different Server OS?

Jeff
TechSoEasy