What is 'Exchange Recovery Storage Group' and how to create it
In this article, I will explain some basics of how to create the Storage Group in Exchange and describe methods to perform storage group recovery from exchange user.
Recovery Storage Group is a storage feature introduced with Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 1. The below given scenario explains the Recovery Storage Group better, let's read on.
You, as an administrator, are asked to provide the mailbox data items of a user working in your organization. You can do it easily using Recovery Storage Group. On request from legal department, you have to retrieve the mailbox from backup and create .pst file consisting of all the required data items. So, you have retrieved the database files from Exchange from the backup, but do not have an idea on how to retrieve the data from these files. In such situations, Recovery Storage Group has been proved immensely helpful.
A Recovery Storage Group is similar to other Storage Groups except that the databases a Recovery Storage Group mounts contain only disconnected mailbox. You can use the Recovery Storage Group for recovery purposes, just restore the database from backup to a Recovery Storage Group and recover data from the restored database. Note that the Group and its databases are not visible to everyone; it can be accessed by an administrator only.
To retrieve a particular user's mailbox, you can create a Recovery Storage Group in Exchange Server 2003 by performing the following actions:
1. Open Exchange System Manager.
2. Expand 'Administrative Groups' -> 'AdministrativeGroupName' -> 'Servers'.
3. Right-click 'ServerName', select 'New' and click on 'Recovery Storage Group'.
4. Type a name that you want to give to Recovery Storage Group in the box titled as 'Name'.
Tip: It is recommended to use the same name as original storage group. In case, doing so leads to the following message, give different name to the Recovery Storage Group:
"The object StorageGroupName already exists. Enter a unique directory name for this object."
5. Specify the location for transaction log files and system path in the boxes titled as 'Transaction log location' and 'System path location'. Note that you need to specify a different location for transaction log from that of location for transaction log in original storage group.
6. Click OK.
7. Right-click the created Recovery Storage Group, and click on 'Add Database to Server'.
8. In the dialog named 'Select database to recover', click on the mailbox store that has to be added to the Recovery Storage Group. Click 'OK'.
9. In the dialog box named 'Mailbox Store Properties', review mailbox store's properties and click on 'OK'.
In order to restore the Mailbox Store to Recovery Storage Group, you can either restore it from an online backup or take the backup manually by copying the database files to a folder on server.
Also Read: How to recover deleted messages from Exchange Server
In this way, creating Recovery Storage Group facilitates you to perform Exchange Recovery to retrieve mailbox of any user. Note that you need to have good knowledge / understanding of the whole process to prevent any kind of data loss that may lead to severe situations. In case, you find that you have lost some data, get Exchange Server recovery software online, it will recover all the data efficiently.
