One of benefits of having a network storage device for a small business is that you can “mirror” your key data to your NAS device as a readily available backup.
What I have done is create a batch file on the server that looks like this:
Net use K: \\NAS1\General /y
RoboCopy D:\Shares\F-Drive K:\Server1\F-Drive /MIR /FFT /R:5 /W:5 /LOG:Robo-F.txt
Net use /d K:
I then schedule the job to run at night.
The /R:5 tells robocopy to retry busy files only 5 times, otherwise it tries 1 million times!
The /W5 tells robocopy to wait 5 seconds between retries.
(Without setting /R & /W, 1 open file from 1 idiot who did not log out before going home can keep the backup stuck all night.)
During the next day, if anyone determines a file needs to be restored, no need to restore from a backup, just copy it back from the NAS device.
If the server should fail, having a business network storage device online with the data as of the night before can really buy some time in getting the primary server rebuilt.
Even Microsoft Exchange email is available as of the night before since another job uses ExMerge to export each individuals mailbox to a .pst file as a backup.
The RoboCopy command above creates a “mirror” of the data in that any file deleted from the source also gets deleted from the NAS. Yet if something gets deleted from the NAS, it will NOT be deleted from the source server.
Take a look at the best small business network storage devices for this type of job.
