A nice feature of Symantec Backup Exec is it’s ability to backup directly to removable media, such as USB hard disk drives. This can be extremely handy if your primary backup device, such as as tape unit, develops a fault. To create a removable backup to disk folder and re-target your current backup job(s) perform the following:
1. Ensure you have connected your removable media and that it has been formatted and assigned an appropriate drive letter in your Windows operating system.
2. Open Backup Exec 2010 and click the “Devices” tab. In the devices sub window, right click your server name and then select “New Removable Backup-to-Disk Folder” from the available context menu.
3. Follow the Backup to Disk Wizard, and when prompted for a path to your backup to disk folder click “…” to browse and select your removable media drive from the resources window.
4. Complete the rest of the wizard, filling the the values as required. The maximum file size is generally set the size of the removable storage device, the maximum backup sets per file can be left at the default of 100, and the low disk space threshold can be left at it’s default also.
5. Once the creation of the backup to disk folder is completed, you will now notice a new device listed under the “Devices” tab in Backup Exec. If you did not name your device during the creation wizard you will see it listed as “Removable Backup-to-Disk Folder 1”. If you expand the device you will notice a folder will be visible (FLDR000001) denoted by the USB symbol. “Right click this folder and select associate with media set”. From here you can place the folder in the media set that your backup job is targeted at.
6. Now you have associated the removable backup to disk folder with your media set, it is recommended you re-target you backup job to point to the removable media device we have created. To do so click the “Monitor” tab in Backup Exec and double click your required backup job. When the backup job properties window opens, select “Device and Media” from the sub menu’s located on the left. Using the drop down menu available under the device section, select your removable media drive and click “Submit” to save your changes. This will now re-target your backup job to your removable media.
As a side note, if you are backing up a large volume of data expect your job completion time to exceed 12 hours. Typically you won’t receive a data rate higher than 300 megabytes a minute using a removable media device. More information on this process can be found at the following Symantec knowledge base article: http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/253764.htm
