With the release of BackupAssist v7.3 a brand new method for restoring exchange mailbox data was introduced named 'Exchange Granular Restore'. This is still a relatively new feature for many of our customers so I thought it would be useful to put together a guide to introduce this new feature and how best to make use of it. 
Just a quick one to let you know I've just added a video with the shortest possible explanation I can manage of why BackupAssist should be of interest if you're a small business (or work with one).
I hope you enjoy this latest addition to our Youtube channel - please hit the subscribe button if you'd like to be notified of future updates.
The latest BackupAssist release is now available on our site, complete with Server 2012 support and a range of fixes, including one that may be useful if you use data containers for imaging to a Buffalo NAS device.
Download BackupAssist 7.4
Details and release notes below....
If your business closes over the holiday period, and you're 100% confident your data won't be changing while you're away, it's quite likely that you'd rather be eating, drinking and being merry than disappearing off to needlessly change a USB hard drive.
A little-known feature of BackupAssist may just ensure your home remains harmonious this festive period. The scheduling calendar makes it simple to prevent a backup from running on a specific day(s), and here's how you use it.
Cryptolocker is making the headlines for all the wrong reasons at the moment.
In the run up to Christmas where there's likely to be a plentiful supply of email purchase confirmations flowing, I wanted to share my recommendations for keeping your data safe and secure.
In the latest version of BackupAssist (7.3.1), there was a change to the activation process I'd like to make you aware of as it's understandably catching a few customers out.
In the latest version there was a change implemented to help ensure that as a customer you're on the 'local' build of the software, complete with support links that point back to our technical team here in the UK.
Yet another new BackupAssist update this morning!
While this one's mainly tweaks and fixes, it does include a feature we've been asked for a lot by customers and will certainly be of interest if you run a version of Exchange on a Hyper-V guest.
We often get support queries where the PC clock has been the cause of an issue but never have I seen a few minutes of drift make such a difference.
This one isn't actually specific to BackupAssist but it did rear its head with a customer who happened to be storing their backups on a local NAS. The backup job in question was a 'file protection' one, so the simple backup of files to a local network share as a destination. The job had run fine for many days without errors but suddenly overnight the job would fail with an error like the one below:-
If you've been using BackupAssist for a long time, and the drive you installed it on wasn't the largest to begin with, you might be finding it's starting to outgrow it.
Your BackupAssist installation folder will become larger over time, primarily because it stores reports and diagnostic files in the program data folder. Why not just delete old reports? Well you could, and that will help as a quick fix but it will only stop the problem temporarily.
The developers are aware that some more options would be useful here to better manage this, but in the meantime, here's a simple workaround you can deploy to reclaim that space by moving BackupAssist to a different drive which takes up most of the space.
This morning across the office I overheard the words 'that's grand int'it!?' from our resident BackupAssist technical guru.
I can assure you this doesn't happen often and roughly translated from Yorkshireman-speak, is a resounding seal of approval for the new Exchange Granular Restore 'direct injection' feature in BackupAssist 7.3.
