Exchange Server 2013 - Restore took 20 hours - how can we speed up that process ?

IT Guy 106 Reputation points
2020-10-14T09:36:53.207+00:00

Dear Exchange Pros.

We made a full restore of our Exchange Server 2013 virtual machine to be sure that restore works before we install Cumulative Update 23. Restore of complete VM took 20 hours !

The System Disk C: is 30GB of data, the Mailbox Database on Disk D: is 600GB of Data and the archive Disk on Disk E: is 220 GB, so all together is almost 1 TB of Data that has to be restored in restore process.

How can we speed up that process the best way?

I know, it is possible to move the databases to another place but whats best practice here ?

When we move the databases to an other system / storage, how will this complicate the backup / restore process ?

Thank you very much for help.

Exchange Server Management
Exchange Server Management
Exchange Server: A family of Microsoft client/server messaging and collaboration software.Management: The act or process of organizing, handling, directing or controlling something.
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Windows Server Backup
Windows Server Backup
Windows Server: A family of Microsoft server operating systems that support enterprise-level management, data storage, applications, and communications.Backup: A duplicate copy of a program, a disk, or data, made either for archiving purposes or for safeguarding valuable files from loss should the active copy be damaged or destroyed.
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  1. Andy David - MVP 144.4K Reputation points MVP
    2020-10-14T11:52:50.907+00:00

    So taking snapshots of Exchange isn't supported :)

    https://video2.skills-academy.com/en-us/exchange/plan-and-deploy/virtualization?view=exchserver-2019

    What is supported is restoring the Exchange Data from an Exchange aware backup to new server using the recoverserver switch

    https://video2.skills-academy.com/en-us/exchange/recover-an-exchange-server-exchange-2013-help#:~:text=The%20%2Fm%3ARecoverServer%20switch%20rebuilds,also%20use%20an%20existing%20server.

    That should cut down on the actual restore time in that sense.

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  2. Kael Yao-MSFT 37,666 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor
    2020-10-15T07:21:35.037+00:00

    @IT Guy
    Hi,
    Agree with Andy.
    Did you restored the server by using snapshots?It is not supported.
    Instead,you should restore the server from a backup or using Setup /m:RecoverServer.
    Here is a document for your reference:Backup, restore, and disaster recovery

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  3. IT Guy 106 Reputation points
    2020-10-15T09:10:58.517+00:00

    Hello

    Thank you for your feedback.

    The server (Exchange 2013) is am vm running on Hyper-v, we make backup with VmWare Software.
    The complete VM with Exchange 2013, mailbox database and archive database is between 950GB and 1 TB.

    We tested this restore to be sure that we can go back if installation of cumulative update 23 will go wrong. We never had to restore an Exchange Server before so we wanted to test that before we start with the CU update.

    When you say "Instead,you should restore the server from a backup or using Setup /m:RecoverServer."...that means, restore the whole VM with VmWare is NOT ok ???

    Thank you for your time and effort to help me.