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Since Microsoft has dropped the ball significantly with regards to their built-in backup utility in Windows Server 2008, I was wondering what solutions others are using instead.

For those that don't know, the new Windows Server Backup Utility in Server 2008 is a real disappointment.  It won't let you back up to tape.  It will only let you back up to a local hard drive which must be dedicated to the backup.  It will only back up entire volumes (i.e. no selective file backups.)  There is very limited support for backing up to a network file share which basically means my 2TB NAS Backup device is worthless as a backup medium with this utility.  And to top it off, it is not Exchange aware so you can't backup Exchange with it.

I've tried Symantec's Backup Exec and that's pretty bad too.  What else is there that doesn't cost an arm and a leg since both my arms and legs have already been used to purchase the NAS.  

drapsag:

Since Microsoft has dropped the ball significantly with regards to their built-in backup utility in Windows Server 2008, I was wondering what solutions others are using instead.

For those that don't know, the new Windows Server Backup Utility in Server 2008 is a real disappointment.  It won't let you back up to tape.  It will only let you back up to a local hard drive which must be dedicated to the backup.  It will only back up entire volumes (i.e. no selective file backups.)  There is very limited support for backing up to a network file share which basically means my 2TB NAS Backup device is worthless as a backup medium with this utility.  And to top it off, it is not Exchange aware so you can't backup Exchange with it.

I've tried Symantec's Backup Exec and that's pretty bad too.  What else is there that doesn't cost an arm and a leg since both my arms and legs have already been used to purchase the NAS.

I can recommend Backup for Workgroups. We have been using it for 2 years, and works like a charm. You have one central storage to which you can connect all your servers. First backup is a complete snapshot of your drive (or the files/folders you select). Afterwards, only changed files are copied. You can set the retention to anything you want (basically the limit is your storage device). You can restore individual files/folders and even perform a bare-metal restore (very handy when migrating a server to new hardware)

You can purchase open-file addons (for live backups of SQL servers), exchange addon.

And the price is the best part :)