Recently we were trying to come up with recommendations for a customer for the best backup for Window Server 2008 and SBS 2008. We were discussing how the new Windows Server Backup built into 2008 had completely changed the paradigm on backups with no tape support, etc. I told our salesperson that I didn’t have much experience with the new backup. So she called Microsoft and Microsoft told her that the built in Windows Server Backup was really intended for production backups and that she should buy a third-party solution. She thinks that Microsoft was trying to sell her their backup solution.

So I want to know what people’s real-world experience is with Windows Server Backup that is built into Server 2008 and SBS 2008. Do you use it? If not, why not? If so, does it work? Do you use inexpensive external hard drives, removable data cartridges like HP and Dell offer, or something else? Have you ever had to do a simple restore of some data and how did that go? Have you ever had to use it to recover an entire server and how did that go? Have you ever had to use it to recover an entire server to different hardware (in particular different array controller drivers) and how did that go?

I would love to hear from regular techs on this. If anyone from Microsoft sees this, I would like to hear your opinion as well.

Thanks in advance!