Dear All,

I would like to enquire, how do we perform a backup for an Exchange Server 2013?

Can we use Windows Server Backup? I read from forums that it is possible to use this software. But can I know how do I perform differential backup for Windows Server Backup?

Thanks

Regards,
Shan

Yes, you can use Windows Server Backup, but it's lacking features like backup of the passive node of a DAG, which doesn't make any difference to you if you don't have a DAG. 

You shouldn't do differential backups of Exchange.

Thanks Ed for the reply.

What is the recommended backup method using Windows Server Backup? Can I do this ?

1) I will perform a Full backup on Every Sunday using Windows Server Backup?
2) On subsequent days (Mon - Sat) , I will perform a Custom Backup - backing up database folder (C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\)
3) No.1 and No.2 will be repeated weekly.

Can I know if this is a feasible solution? Like in an event if something went wrong, I can still recover back the last backup emails and data etc.

Please advice if there is a better way.

Thanks

Hello Shan,

You can use Windows Server Backup to back up and restore Exchange databases in exchange 2013.

Microsoft Exchange 2013 or previous versions of it includes a plug-in for Windows Server Backup which allows you to make Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)-based backups of Exchange data.

Source:

1. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876854(v=exchg.150).aspx

2. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876874(v=exchg.150).aspx

• Proposed as answer by Allen_WangJFMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator 1 hour 22 minutes ago

Hi,

As additional, we can deploy full, copy, incremental, and differential backups for Exchange 2013 database. Also, we can schedule a backup job by using Backup to specify the times that you want your backups to run.
More details about Types of backup operations for Exchange 2013, for your reference: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/aa579157(v=exchg.150).aspx

Thanks

1. Good.

2.  That won't do much for you.  Only an incremental will delete transaction logs, but incremental backups are difficult to restore and more risky. I recommend just taking full backups.

File backups of databases are of no value, you must take an Exchange database backup, not a file backup.