Recovering storage groups or databases to a custom path

Specify where to recover the selected databases or storage groups.

Note: Since Microsoft Exchange Server has its own versioning limitations, Acronis Backup will inform you about any possible mismatch of Exchange server versions when you recover databases or storage groups to a different version of Exchange server. This alert will not prevent you from doing the recovery, but the recovery will fail if the Microsoft Exchange Server cannot identify the database or storage being recovered.

To recover the selected databases (storage groups) to a new databases (storage groups)

  1. To the right of the Recover <database or storage group name> to, select Create new.
  2. Click Name... and specify the unique name for the database/storage group.
  3. In Database path, specify path to the new database.
  4. In Log path, specify where to store the recovered transaction log files.
  5. Repeat steps 1-4 for other databases or storage groups that you need to recover as new.

To recover the selected databases (storage groups) over the existing ones

  1. To the right of the Recover <database or storage group name> to, select one of the existing databases (storage groups). The existing database (storage group) will be overwritten (if the overwriting is allowed in the properties of the selected databases).
  2. Repeat step 1 for other databases or storage groups that you need to recover over the existing ones.

To recover the selected database (storage group) as a recovery database (recovery storage group)

  1. To the right of the Recover <database or storage group name> to, select Recovery database, or Recovery storage group. Only one database or storage group can be recovered as a recovery database or as a recovery storage group.
  2. In Database path, specify the database location.
  3. In Log path, specify where to store the recovered transaction log files. In Exchange 2003/2007 you have to specify path to the log files only if the destination recovery storage group does not exist.

A recovery database (recovery storage group) is a special administrative database (storage group) in Exchange server. It lets you mount a mailbox database and extract data from it. The extracted data can be copied or merged to the existing mailboxes without disturbing user access to the current data.

Note for public folder databases: A public folder database cannot be recovered as a recovery database (in Exchange 2010) and cannot be recovered to a recovery storage group (in Exchange 2003, 2007). When recovering a storage group containing a public folder database, this database is skipped during recovery. If a storage group being recovered contains a public folder database only, the recovery task will fail.

Note for Exchange 2003, 2007: The existing recovery storage group will be overwritten. Databases that currently do not exist on the server cannot be recovered to a recovery storage group. When recovering a storage group containing non-existent databases, such databases are skipped during recovery. If a storage group being recovered does not contain any databases which currently exist on the server, the recovery task will fail.

Mounting the recovered databases

To mount the databases after recovery, in Mount recovered databases select either Mount or Mount with Active Restore. In the latter case, the databases will be recovered using the Acronis Active Restore technology allowing users to access their e-mails while the Exchange databases are still being recovered.

Mounting a recovery database in Exchange 2010 or later: When you recover the selected database as a recovery database and choose Mount or Mount with Active Restore, the database will be mounted automatically only if there is no other recovery database that is currently mounted on the server. We recommend that you manually unmount the existing mounted recovery database before recovery. Otherwise, you need to unmount the existing recovery database and mount a newly recovered database after recovery.