It is critical the initial Exchange backup is successful in FULL. All incremental backups will depend on the integrity of the first backup (until the next full backup is completed).
Follow these steps:
- Create the new Exchange backup set.
- Change the "Temporary Directory for storing backup files" to a destination other than the "C:\" drive (if you have a drive available). This setting is found in the "Options" section of the backup client. The Exchange database will be spooled to this directory upon backup, so the drive specified needs to have enough free disk space to accomadate the temp files.
- Do not enable the "Windows System State Backup" backup option in the Exchange backup set. Create a separate "System State" backup set.
- Any SQL or Exchange backup set requires a complete database backup to complete successfully, before the transaction log or incremental database backup schedules will be be successful.
Launch a manual backup by:
- Run a manual backup: Launch the backup client and click “Backup” in the left pane.
- Choose the correct Exchange backup set to launch from the drop down.
- Next, select the settings as shown here.
- When you click “OK” the backup job will run (shutting down SQL or Exchange is not required). Once it is finished, you may set your transaction log and database backup schedules as needed.
NOTE: After the steps above are complete, if you want to simply back up the incremental database changes every day versus using the default schedules (Database every Friday, T-logs all other days), then you may remove the transaction log backup schedule altogether. If you do this, then change the database schedule to "daily". For smaller data stores this is best practice (e.g. under 20GB in size).