Best Choice：Windows Server 2012 R2 Backup Software

What is the best way to backup using Windows Server 2012 R2 backup?

"I currently have a server running Windows Server 2012 R2. I'm backing up the data to an external drive. But now I want to use the server's backup feature. I want to do a state back and data since they are on the same drive. There is a 1TB of data on the drive.

I guess my question is, do I do full backups every night or just do 1 full backup and then incremental? Thanks."

Windows Server comes along with a server backup software - Windows Server Backup, which allows you to create a full backup, system state, bare metal, data on a specific volume, etc. And it says you don't need to manage full backup and incremental backup, it will create an incremental backup by default and it behaves like a full backup.

But in reality, many users report that Windows Server Backup does not work as they want,  and more important, they want to set the backup method and running rules as they want. In this case, the best way is to use a reliable server backup software and I'll introduce you to such one software in this article.

Why Need to Backup Server 2012 R2?

Windows Server 2012 R2 is widely used among small businesses, since most SMBs don’t own an IT department or data center to work with, but they need a way to store their important data about the company. And it made some improvements in the following:

• Add Work Folder to help you make corporate data be available.
• The SMB has been improved compared with SMB3.0.
• Another improvement is that you can uninstall SMB 1.0. It refers to that if you don’t have any legacy left then you can uninstall SMB 1.0.

At the same time, the data is very vulnerable due to attacks by viruses, hardware failures, etc. Can you imagine how terrible when these disasters happen and cause important data loss? Maybe somebody in the company is always worrying about the problem.

Therefore, in order for your company to avoid data loss, you should back up your data on Windows Server 2012 R2 in advance.

Best Backup Software for Windows Server 2012 R2 - AOMEI Backupper Server

AOMEI Backupper Server is committed to protecting all data from loss. With this software, you can perform Windows Server 2012 R2 backup to external hard drive with just a few clicks. Furthermore, you can choose to backup files or system depending on your requirements. Also, you can use it in Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022 and other previous systems.

Below are some useful features you can enjoy during the backup process:

✭ Differens backup options: It allows you to do System Backup, File Backup, Disk Backup and Partition Backup.
✭ Intelligent backup methods: It offers you Incremental & Differential Backup to only back up changed data to save storage space and time.
✭ Mutiple schedule backup settings: You can backup Windows Server 2012 R2 in daily/weekly/monthly, or use "Event triggers" and "USB plug in".

To get started, please download the 30-day trial version and follow the steps in the next part to create a system image for Windows Server 2012 R2.

How-to Guide: Perform Windows Server 2012 R2 Backup to External Hard Drive

Before performing the backup task,  you need to prepare an external hard drive and be sure it's initialized and recognized by your computer. To initialize the disk, follow the steps below.

• Connect the external hard drive to computer via USB port. 
• Type diskmgmt.msc in the search box and hit OK to open Disk Management.
• It will ask you to initialize disk if it is not, select disk and the partition style (MBR or GPT), click OK.

• Wait until the process is complete. Right-click it in the Disk Management, select New Simple Volume and follow the on-screen instructions to create partition for external drive.

Afterward, open your Windows Explorer, and you will see the external hard drive if it is recognized. Then, launch server backup software and create a system image for Windows Server 2012 R2.

Step 1. In the main page, click Backup >System Backup in order.

Step 2. The program will automatically select the system drive for you. You just need to check if all the partitions are included and select the external hard drive to store backup image. 

Step 3. Click Schedule Backup and enable it, then select daily, weekly, monthly, event trigger or USB plug in. Once it is enabled, the incremental backup will be selected by default. The default backup cycle is one full backup and 6 incremental backups.

More options:
✡ Options: Here you can add comments to your backup tasks and enable email notifications. You can also encrypt for backup, which helps when you want to avoid unwanted access from others.
✡ Backup Scheme: Except for incremental backup, you can also use differential backup and automatic backup cleanup to delete old backups to free up disk space. Note all of them are available on the premium version. 

Step 4. Finally, click Start Backup to perform the task.

Summary

With the best Windows Server 2012 R2 backup software in this article, you can easily back up your server with just a few clicks and no special technical skills required. Besides Backup features, this software can help you create Windows Server recovery disk. When you encounter system crash, hard disk failure, virus attack, you can use this recovery disk to easily restore your computer backup to normal.