Question : Problem: Remote Backups in Backup Exec

This should be a fairly easy/basic question.

Our current infrastructure:

-One Windows Server 2003 with Symantec Backup Exec 11D
-Various file servers located in the same physical office, running the Backup Exec Remote Agent

I just purchased a few external hard-drives with large capacities, to give us some more flexibility with our backups.  Does it make more sense to attach the drives (via USB 2.0) to the backup server itself...or to the remote servers?

My thinking was that attaching them to the servers themselves would allow us to do more large (100+GB) backups without sucking them across the network.  However, is this how Backup Exec works?  I've created a 'Backup to Disk' folder on the backup server...and pointed it to the new drive on the remote server.  When jobs are processed, will all of that data (100+ GB) be pulled across the network or not?

Please provide a link/documentation to support your answer.  Thanks!

Answer : Problem: Remote Backups in Backup Exec

There's no link to support my answer. I suppose you'll have to take my word for it.

Attaching the USB drives to the remote server will actually transfer the data across the network two times.  The Backup Exec server will pull in the data from the "BE Remote Agent" process on the remote server, and then push it out again through the "BE Device and Media Service" process to the shared drive on the remote server. So, bad idea I'm afraid.

Only attaching the USB drives to the BE server makes sense.
But be aware that USB is generally much slower than SCSI or tape. USB gives you offsite flexibility, but you may loose performance. And another problem with multiple USB drives is that they will probably come up under different drive letters - a B2D device will always require the same drive letter.