Which is a more robust back up solution? Windows Server Backup or 3rd party solutions such as Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 and Symantec System Recovery Server Edition? I'm looking for a solution to backup both my primary and secondary partitions and has the ability to restore to the same drive or a replacement drive. Thanks for your input. Eric

Windows 2008 r2 native backup doesn't support tape drives any more.therefore you have to use enterprise level backup software such as MS DPM 2012/2010 or Symantec backup exec. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/system-center/datacenter-management-capabilities.aspxDarshana Jayathilake

Use norton ghost to take backup of entire drive and you can restore to other deives too.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd979562(v=ws.10).aspx you don't have to use Norton ghost for this.with windows native backup you can do the bare metal restore.Darshana Jayathilake

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd979562(v=ws.10).aspx you don't have to use Norton ghost for this.with windows native backup you can do the bare metal restore.Darshana Jayathilake

Use norton ghost to take backup of entire drive and you can restore to other deives too. Actually, I use Symantec System Restore 2011 Desktop Edition on my Win 7 machines but for the Server OSes, you need a server license to get SSR installed, which is $845 for 1 seat. Sadly, this is not an option as I have used SSR since the days of BackUp Exec 7.

Thanks for the info. For Server 2008 R2 I'll stick with Windows Server Backup.

Hi, Glad to know your inquiry got clear, thanks for your time and marking. Yep, Volume Shadow Copy is really powerful and widely used to deal with the server back up and recovery. Regards, JamesJames Xiong TechNet Community Support