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Recovery Storage Group (RSG) has been operational since Exchange 2003 SP1 and gives us the ability to restore a single mailbox or a single item from a backup, using the simplest backup software like Ntbackup, without using expensive backup tools like brick level agents and while the production Database is up and running.
There are some major and significantly good changes in the Exchange 2007 RSG in comparison to the Exchange 2003 RSG and most of them are as a result of the powerful power shell capabilities.
In this article I will describe, step by step, how to configure RSG and how to restore an item or a mailbox from backup.
Requirements and naming conventions
For the purpose of this article, I’ve used the following objects:
The process is divided into 4 parts:
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Optional: Restore the relevant items / mailbox – Using MSH.
Having a backup of the DB, a backup that contains the items that were deleted
Note that the backup process usually should run every day automatically; therefore you may skip this step.
Open the Ntbackup software, mark the DB you want to backup and verify that the backup completed successfully:
Create the RSG in the Exchange server
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Restore the relevant items / mailbox – Using GUI
Note that the Administrator mailbox, before the emails deletion, looks as follows:
Note: In this example I have chosen to restore all the items with the word TEST (the search is not case sensitive) to the Test_Folder folder in the Administrator’s mailbox.
Search by subject (TEST) and copy all the items that will be found to the Administrator’s mailbox:
Search the TEST word in the next mailboxes:
Optional: Restore the relevant items / mailbox – Using MSH
The alternative way to restore items from specific dates, specific subjects and from user’s mailboxes, is using the Exchange Management Shell (MSH). In the following examples, I will demonstrate how to restore items that were deleted from the Administrator’s mailbox.
Example 1:
The Goal:
Restore items (all items in mailbox) from Administrator mailbox in RSG back to the live mailbox, under the Restore folder:
The Command:
[PS] C:'>restore-mailbox -RSGMailbox 'Administrator' -RSGDatabase 'Recovery Storage Group'Mailbox Database' -id 'Administrator' -TargetFolder ‘Restore’
Note: Any mailbox that is restored from RSG can be restored to any mailbox on the production Database. In this case, instead of restoring the data to back to the Administrator’s mailbox, we can restore it to Tkolber’s mailbox, by running the next command:
[PS] C:'>restore-mailbox -RSGMailbox 'Administrator' -RSGDatabase 'Recovery Storage Group'Mailbox Database' -id 'Tkolber' -TargetFolder ‘Restore’
The Process:
19_Restore_to_Restore_Folder.gif
After running the command, you are asked to approve the process:
After approving the process, the tasks are shown in the background:
When the process ends, a summery of the process is presented on the screen:
The Result:
When the process ends, we can see the destination folder (Restore) in the user’s mailbox:
Example 2:
The Goal:
Restore items from Administrator mailbox in RSG, from January 15th to February 27th, back to the live mailbox, under the Date_Range_Jan15th to Feb27th folder:
The Command:
[PS] C:'>restore-mailbox -RSGMailbox 'Administrator' -RSGDatabase 'Recovery Storage Group'Mailbox Database' -id 'Administrator' -TargetFolder 'Date_Range_Jan15th to Feb27th' -StartDate '01/15/07' -EndDate '02/27/07'
The Result:
When the process ends, we can see the destination folder (Date_Range_Jan15th to Feb27th) in the user’s mailbox from the relevant dates only:
Example 3:
The Goal:
Restore all mailbox content from Administrator’s mailbox in RSG, back to the live mailbox:
The Command:
[PS] C:'>restore-mailbox -id 'Administrator' -RSGDatabase 'Recovery Storage Group'Mailbox Database'
The Result:
When the process ends, all the data that was in the Administrator’s mailbox, merged into his production mailbox.
Dismount and remove the RSG
After you complete the restore from RSG, you should dismount the RSG, the main reason to do it is to enable the production DB (any live DB) restore.
Another Petri article on exchange database recovery is available also.
More from Daniel Petri
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