Symantec Backup Exec 12

By Michael Palamountain, Enex TestLab on 14 July 2008 10:52 AM

Tags: symantec, backup exec 12, windows server, recovery

Manufacturer: Symantec

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• For more information, see the Symantec website.

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Buyer beware! It's a long fru ...Z. Rover -- 12/04/09

Buyer beware! It's a long frustrating battle to try and implement this software. It's impossible if you have any older Windows 2000 workstations to back up. Licensing is a nightmare to figure out. Error reporting is a joke - gives you lots of suggestions to try, few that are pertinent, none that work. Backup-to-disk just fragments your disk, you wait a couple hours then it finally fails. Spend a few more hours defragging or trying their suggestions. Back up again for a few hours - fails again etc. If you try they're "test run", it runs for a half hour, then fails and says you should try a backup first. Of course, if I have a backup, why do I need to test it?

"Create and run a backup job that backs up at least one file and targets the "backup-to-disk-folder" or "backup-to-disk device". This will initialize the "backup-to-disk-folder" or "backup-to-disk device" allowing the Test Run job to perform a "media check" "

I'd only try this software if you have a job where you don't report to anyone, otherwise you'll be really embarrassed. The software's expensive, but the time invested to get it running will dwarf whatever you paid.

If you have all Vista or maybe even XP machines, i.e. shadow copy machines, then at least you'll only have to worry about "The data being read from the media is inconsistent (e00084ca HEX or a00084ca HEX) " and other such media server errors.

I'm running Backup Exec 12.5 For Windows Servers on Windows Server 2008, and trying to backup Win 2000, Win 2003 Server, XP, Vista, and other Win Server 2008 machines.


The good: Nice idea, clear screen layout, pretty good documentation, though could be better at explaining various details.

The bad: Doesn't work. At great expense, I'm going back to robocopy.

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I'd have to say that both BE a ...Frus Trated -- 21/04/09

I'd have to say that both BE and BESR fall under the typical Symantec marketing crap. They both seem nice in concept, and if you can get them to work consistently, then they are really nice products. BESR frequently fails and is a pain if you are doing images to a removable or NAS type of device that you swap out occassionally.

BE suffers from the problem of, "oh, yeah you can backup Exchange, but if you want to restore an individual message, you'll have to upgrade since the restore feature hasn't worked in the last 4 versions that we've sold you."

Symantec licesning is the WORST. When you renew your subscription every year, they don't just extend the date of your contract, they give you a new contract. Every year you will spend HOURS on the phone with them trying to get this resolved.

The good: If it works, it is nice.

The bad: Too much time to get it to work. Licensing process is TERRIBLE. BESR is troublesome if you swap drives. BESR granular file restore is option and expensive. BE and BESR are both expensive. If you backup with BE, then you must have it (preferrably the same version) to restore.

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