Windows Server Backup Limitations and Shortfalls

In a world of restrictive IT budgets, it’s hard to beat free! And nobody would disagree that a simple, functional backup is better than no backup at all. However the question often comes up, "Is the backup software that is included with the Microsoft Windows operating system sufficient to protect the data of my business?". In all likelihood, it depends upon your environment and your backup needs.

Today we'll take a brief look at the shortcomings of Windows Server Backup (WSB), the software included with Microsoft Windows Server product. (Note: You may find similarities with the backup included with the Microsoft Windows 10 operating system as well.) Selecting the correct Windows server backup solutions and methods of protecting data can be crucial to the health of your business.

Top Windows Server Backup Limitations

1. Storage Media

Windows Server Backup limits the range of usable storage technologies. Users must back up to a fixed local disk meaning that automated backup to removable media Tape, DVD, and RDX is not possible. Backups to dedicated drives then become invisible to Windows Explorer, while backups to a volume will offer comparatively reduced performance.

2. Network Share

While you can send backups to a network share, the software will keep only a single backup, erasing the previous backup each time a backup is completed. Many businesses will find this option unusable, an effective deal-breaker due to their businesses file versioning and data retention requirements.

3. Encryption

By default, Windows Server Backup encryption is not turned on. To create encrypted backups with Windows Backup, you must first install Bitlocker (a separate application). Source and destination locations must then be enabled and prepared for Bitlocker. If the required drive is not encrypted when the backup job runs, the backup job will fail. A USB drive will be required for encryption keys. This is not typically what SysAdmins would call seamless integrated encryption.

4. Support

When was the last time you tried to call Microsoft about one of their free included tools? Due to the importance and complexity of data protection manufacturer support is one of the essential requirements for a professional backup solution. Consider your recourse should a critical backup fail to restore.

5. Monitoring

Windows Server Backup manages the backups on a per-server basis, which means you may be running between multiple servers to verify, maintain, and manage your backups. If you require the ability to verify the backup status of all machines at a glance with central monitoring, you’ll be out of luck.

6. Reporting

Modern backup programs offer instant verification of whether backups succeed or fail, often through automated email reports and alert notifications. But if you are looking for detailed reporting with WSB, you may want to think again.  Those are considered enterprise-level features that are not included.

7. Granularity

WSB will perform a complete backup of SQL or Exchange when a VSS-aware backup is enabled. Hopefully, you’ve tested to see exactly how long it will take to recover. You will only have the option of restoring the entire exchange store or SQL database, rather than being able to restore specific mailboxes and tables.

Growing businesses face ever-changing needs in regard to their data protection. Are there additional weaknesses or Windows Server 2016/2012/2008 backup limitations that you've run into? If you run into issues that have caused a need for a second look at your backup methods, contact our backup experts and we will see what we can do to offer assistance. NovaBACKUP's small business product line offers Windows server backup products, PC Windows backup, and a free monitoring console for keeping tabs on the health of your data. If you would like to speak with an expert about how your backup solution could be improved, click here to reach out.

Written by Sean Curiel.
Sean is a marketing expert serving NovaBACKUP and DataCenter communities. The views expressed are exclusively his own and not necessarily those of NovaBACKUP Corporation.