Windows Server® 2012 Unleashed

Backup Storage Support and Media Management

Windows Server Backup enables administrators to back up to locally attached disks, network shares, and DVD writable media. Tape devices are not supported by Windows Server Backup, and to back up to DVD media, the system requires a local writable DVD drive.

Windows Server Backup handles all the media management itself. When leveraging local backup storage, it performs the labeling of the media and efficiently stores backup data by using block-level backups that only back up new and changed blocks. The backup on a single disk may contain several days’ or weeks’ worth of backups, depending on the disk size and the size of the backup datasets. Free space is also managed, and when additional space is required, ...