Performing Backups With ShadowProtect

This Article Applies to:

Avast Business CloudCare

IMPORTANT: ESS and ShadowProtect have been officially retired. If you have not yet moved away from these services, please do so immediately to avoid encountering any disruption once they are completely turned off. For more information on CloudCare services discontinuation, see CloudCare Services EoL.

Backup Types

ShadowProtect offers two backup options in its Backup Wizard: one-time, and scheduled.

One-Time Backup: does not affect existing scheduled backup jobs. You must be a member of the Administrator group on the system where you want to create a backup. These are supported from both Windows and Recovery Environment
Scheduled Backup: a volume can belong to no more than one scheduled incremental backup job. This limitation does not include one-time backup images or differential backup images as long as they do not disrupt sector tracking for the incremental backup. If the computer is turned off, unavailable, or running a backup already, a scheduled backup will be skipped. These are supported only from Windows

ShadowProtect includes VirtualBoot, which allows administrators to launch a temporary replacement for a crashed or disabled server. In order to continue the existing backup chain for the server while it is hosted on a Virtual Machine, you must use a ShadowProtect Destination Object of type “Network Share” to store the system’s image files.

Backup Scheduling

Now: Creates one-time Full or Differential backup images as soon as the Backup Wizard closes
Later: Creates one-time Full backup images at the specified date and time. By default, the Start Time field displays the current date and time. You can change the time by clicking on an element of hte date/time, then either type or use the up/down buttons to set the desired value
Weekly: Creates Full and Incremental backup images on a weekly schedule. You select the weekdays and time of day to start the Full backup. Optionally, you can specify a schedule for Incremental backups (weekdays, start and end times, and frequency)
Monthly: Creates Full and Incremental backup images on a monthly schedule. You select the days of the month and time of day to start the Full backup. Optionally, you can specify a schedule for Incremental backups (weekdays, start and end times)

Differential Backups

Use a differential to create a backup file that contains only the differences since the last backup.

Select Differential backup in the Backup Wizard’s Backup Schedule page
Continue with the Wizard to the Previous Backup Image page
Select the existing backup image file to use as a basis for creating the differential backup image, then click Next
On the Options page, select the desired backup image file options
Click Next to continue with the Wizard

Backup Mounting

The ShadowProtect Explore Backup Wizard guides you through the process of mounting a backup image file. If the selected image file is part of a chain, ShadowProtect automatically associates the files required to browse and restore this specific backup image file. You only need to select the backup image you want to explore. Once mounted, you can treat the backup image file as you would any other Windows volume:

Browse the backup image file
Share the backup image file
Copy individual files and folders from the backup image file
Modify the backup image file (if the volume is configured as writable)
Use standard Windows security and file properties

The restore process is the same whether you use the ShadowProtect console and Windows to restore files and folders or use the StorageCraft Recovery Environment to do so. Which you use depends specifically on the state of your system and what you need to restore:

Restore in Windows: Windows runs but you have lost data or had undesirable changes to applications or hardware files on a volume (excluding the operating system files)
Restore in Recovery Environment: Windows does not load and you have lost data or operating system files, or had undesirable changes to applications or hardware files on a volume

To restore data from an incremental image, you must have all previous incremental backup image files and the initial full backup image that the selected image depends on. If any of these files is missing or corrupt, mounting the backup image to that point in time is not possible.

Mounting Image Files

Use the Explore Backup Wizard in ShadowProtect to display the Backup Image File Name page
Browse to the backup image file you want to mount, then click Next
1. If the backup image is encrypted you must provide the password
The Explore Backup Image Wizard displays a categorized list of information about the backup image file
(Conditional) In the Backup Image Dependencies page, select the desired point-in-time image from the selected backup image set then click Next
On the Explore Options page, select how you want to mount the backup image then click Next

Mount Options

As a drive letter

Select Assign the following drive letter
Select the appropriate drive letter from the drop-down list

As a mount point

Select Mount in the following empty NTFS folder
Browse to an appropriate folder to select it
To name the mount point subfolder, select to use:
- Time/Date (defaults to the image file's creation timestamp)
- File Name (defaults to the image file's name)
- Custom (a user-defined string)
- (Optional) Deselect Mount Backup as Read-Only to mount the backup image as a writeable volume
  - If you mount the backup image file as a writeable volume, you can choose to save the changes to an Incremental image file when you dismount the volume. Mounting a backup image as a writeable volume does not alter the source file. ShadowProtect never modifies an existing backup file
On the Wizard Summary page, review the mount information, then click Finish. ShadowProtect mounts the backup image file, automatically launches Windows Explorer and then displays the mounted volume

To restore individual files or folders, use Windows Explorer to copy them from the backup image file volume to your production volume.

Once mounted, select Refresh Volumes Info to get an accurate view of the mounted system volumes from the Disk Map tab.