SBS 2003 To SBS 2011 Backup – Run A System State Backup

Before starting any changes on the source SBS 2003 server it is _absolutely critical_ to take a full backup (we use ShadowProtect) and a System State backup:

Note the time it took to run the System State backup shown above: 2 min, 3 sec. With a couple of minutes to get the backup configuration steps done this will be one of the best 5 minutes spent in the entire migration process _if things fail catastrophically_ and there is a need to step back.

That check mark should never be checked if a proper full server backup and a System State backup has not been taken.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Making a change? Back up! Touching that server? Back up!

We are in the process of migrating one of our long time non-profit clients from SBS 2003 R2 Premium to SBS 2011 Standard.

Their old server is _very_ tired and needs to be replaced.

We ran the needed updates and configuration tests before going forward with the changes for the migration itself. Prior to doing this we backed the server up.

We used NTBackup to create our System State backup shown at the bottom of the above screenshot. We then ran an incremental backup in ShadowProtect 3.x for SBS.

We were then confident to install and run the Source Prep Tool from the SBS 2011 TOOLS folder and move on to installing SBS 2011 in Migration Mode.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer