Selecting data to back up

To select the data to back up

1. In the Data to back up section, select the type of data you want to be backed up. The list of available data types depends on the agents running on the machines:

   Machines/disks/volumes

   Select this option to back up:

   • Entire physical machines or their disks or volumes, if Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 Agent for Windows or Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 Agent for Linux is installed.

     To be able to back up this data, you must have Administrator or Backup operator privileges.

     A disk-level backup enables you to recover the entire system in case of severe data damage or hardware failure. The backup procedure is faster than copying files, and may significantly speed up the backup process when it comes to backing up large volumes of data.

   • Entire virtual machines residing on a virtualization server or their disks or volumes, if Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 Agent for ESX(i) or Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 Hyper-V is installed.

     Backing up an entire virtual machine, its disks, or volumes yields a standard disk backup. In addition, this backup stores the virtual machine configuration. This configuration will be suggested by default when recovering the backup content to a new virtual machine. For more information about backing up virtual machines see "Backing up virtual machines".

   Folders/files

   Available if Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 Agent for Windows or Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 Agent for Linux is installed.

   Select this option to back up specific files and folders.

   A file-level backup is not sufficient for recovery of the operating system. Choose file backup if you plan to keep safe only certain data (the current project, for example). This will reduce the archive size, thus saving storage space.

   In order to recover your operating system along with all the settings and applications, you have to perform a disk backup.

   Microsoft Exchange Information Store

   Available if Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 Agent for Microsoft Exchange Server is installed.

   Select this option to back up information store, individual storage groups or databases of Microsoft Exchange servers. In case of disaster, you will be able to recover lost or corrupted databases or storage groups. Also, you can individually recover mailboxes, public folders, single emails, contacts, calendar events, and other items.

   To be able to back up Exchange data, a domain user account that has administrative privileges on the Exchange server is required. In a cluster, the account must have administrative privileges on each of the cluster’s nodes.

   For more information about backing up Microsoft Exchange data see "Backing up Microsoft Exchange Server data".

   Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes

   Available if Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 Agent for Microsoft Exchange Server is installed.

   Select this option to back up individual mailboxes and public folders without backing up the entire Microsoft Exchange database. By using the exclusion filters, you can specify items to be skipped during mailbox backups.

   To be able to back up Exchange data, a domain user account that has administrative privileges on the Exchange server is required. In a cluster, the account must have administrative privileges on each of the cluster’s nodes.

   For more information about backing up Microsoft Exchange data see "Backing up Microsoft Exchange Server data".

2. Choose how to select the items:
   • Select items directly (default) – recommended in cases, when backing up different data items on multiple machines. For example, FolderA on Machine1, FolderB on Machine2, FolderC on Machine3, etc.

     Microsoft Exchange server's data items to back up are selected directly. Selection of Exchange data items by using the policy rules is not supported.

     To back up all items of the selected data type present on a machine, select the check box next to the machine. To back up individual data items, expand the machine and select check boxes next to the required items.

     Notes for physical machines, their disks and volumes

     • If your operating system and its loader reside on different volumes, always include both volumes in the backup. The volumes must also be recovered together; otherwise there is a high risk that the operating system will not start.
     • Notes for Linux users: Logical volumes and MD devices are shown under Dynamic volumes. For more information about backing up such volumes and devices, see "Backup and recovery of logical volumes and MD devices (Linux)".
     • Note for Linux users: We recommend that you unmount any volumes that contain non-journaling file systems—such as the ext2 file system—before backing them up. Otherwise, these volumes might contain corrupted files upon recovery; recovery of these volumes with resize might fail.

     Notes for virtual machines, their disks and volumes

     • Backing up entire virtual machines comes in handy when having small (in terms of virtual disks size) but numerous legacy servers such as those resulting from workload consolidation. A separate archive will be created for each machine.
     • Backing up individual disks or volumes within a virtual machine comes in handy when the operating system and applications, such as a database server, run on a virtual disk, but the data, such as a database, is stored on a large capacity physical disk added to the same machine. You will be able to use different backup strategies for the virtual disk and the physical storage.

     For more information about backing up virtual machines see "Backing up virtual machines".

   • Use policy rules for selection – most suitable in cases, when backing up the same data items on multiple machines. For example, backing up the system volume on every selected machine.

     For more information, see the following sections:

     Selection rules for files and folders

     Selection rules for volumes

3. Having specified the data to backup, click OK.