Determining Windows 2000 Storage Management Strategies

A Data Protection Strategy for Enterprise Networks

Consider the following backup and fault-tolerance strategies when creating your data protection policies:

Back up an entire volume in case a disk fails. It is more efficient to restore the entire volume in one operation.
Always back up the directory services database on a domain controller to prevent the loss of user account and security information.
For your critical computers, you can implement a software mirror of two separate hardware-controlled RAID arrays. With this configuration, if either a disk or an entire array fails, operations can continue.
In the event that a computer running Windows 2000 Server fails, you should have a spare computer with Windows 2000 Server already installed to which you can move the data disks.

Some points to consider when planning your storage strategy include the following:

In general, you only need to use fault-tolerant configurations for information that you must have readily available in case of hardware failure or unrecoverable disk errors should the primary data source go offline for any reason.
If you have applications on a single computer running Windows 2000 Server, you only need to run them on a fault-tolerant volume if you cannot tolerate their unavailability for the amount of time it takes you to restore the applications from a backup.
You need to back up the application volume any time you install a new application or change default settings for an application.
If space is a consideration, you can format your application volume with the NTFS file system and use NTFS compression for folders and files on the volume.