Storage - Add Backup Storage Device

At any time, you can add more storage capacity to your Backup Server. Please note that all storage devices listed in your Backup Storage Group must be online and accessible for your backups to occur. When you have more than one BAckup Storage location contained in your Backup Storage Group, your backup data will be stored on the locations in the order they appear in the list. For example, backup files will be stored on the first named location until that device is 75% full.  Once the first device is 75% full, the Backup Server will start to "span" or "spill" over to the second named location. This will repeat until all named devices are 75% full; when the new backup data will go to the device with the most free space remaining until all locations are full. 

How to Add Storage to your Backup Storage Group

  1. Go to the computer running the Backup Server software.

  2. Run Backup for Workgroups.

  3. Select the Storage panel.

  4. In the upper half of the Storage Panel which is called the Backup Storage Group, press the Add button.

  5. At the Add Storage Device dialog, select the path to the additional storage location. If the storage location does not appear in the drop-down list, and it is a local drive, press the Advanced button to type in the path to the drive. If the storage location is a network share, press the Network Share button and enter the path to the network share and the access credentials necessary to access the share.

  6. Press Verify to make sure Backup for Workgroups has full access rights to the new storage device.

What Type of Storage Can Be Added to Your Backup Storage Group

You can use any disk storage device as long as it appears as a hard drive or network share point inside of Windows. Examples of disk storage devices that you can use include: internal hard drives, external hard drives, USB drives, FireWire drives, NAS devices, SAN devices, RAID storage devices, and any other storage device that appears as a hard drive or network share inside Windows. Remember that if you are using an Interlocked Mirror, and you have just added another storage device to your primary storage group, you need to add a corresponding device to your mirror group. 

PLEASE READ - Special Note About Network Shares and UNC Format Path Information - PLEASE READ

When you decide to add storage that resides at a network share, you MUST enter the name of the network share in UNC format. Note that if you enter a mapped network drive path by letter, Backup for Workgroups will inform you that it would like to change the information to the UNC equivalent for you. You cannot use a mapped network drive letter because the Backup Server runs as a service and Windows only makes the drive letters available to logged in users, not services.  The UNC format works just fine with Windows services. The UNC format consists of \\DeviceName\Sharepoint\FolderName.