[geeks] Windows drive->drive backup

[Eric Railine]

On 6/10/07, Phil Stracchino <phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net> wrote:
> There is basically one and *only* one way around the open-file problem
> on Windows that actually *works*.  That solution is St. Bernard Open
> File Manager.

Well, that's overstating things a bit.  I haven't used that product,
but there are a lot of products that specifically back up open files
under Windows.  Most enterprise-class backup software at least offer
specific modules for backing up open files if it's not included in the
base product itself.  Legato Networker, as one example, has an open
file agent, although in 6 years of backing up ~100 Windows servers
with Legato the only open files that I found that it didn't backup
were mdf/ldf files (SQL, Access, etc. databases) - and I think that's
a marketing limitation (to sell the open file or SQL agents) rather
than a technical one; every other type of open file (OS or
application) that I ever ran into backed up just fine, though.  Other
backup software like Veritas, NetVault, etc. offer similar
capabilities.  With the advent of Volume Shadow Copy Services in W2K3
even more products started offering open file backups.

There's also a number of replication products, like DoubleTake, that
have no problem with handling open files, either.

> It's not free.  I don't know how much a single-seat license costs.

Yeah, I'm not aware of any free or even cheap solutions, either.
Rsync works great under Windows, but not for open files....

-Eric