Offline and online image backup

The traditional offline image backup prevents write access to the volume by other system applications during the operation.

If open file support has been configured, Tivoli® Storage Manager performs a snapshot backup or archive of files that are locked (or "in use") by other applications.

Use VSS as the snapshot provider for open file support.

The following considerations apply to offline and online image backups:

• If you create an image of the system drive, you cannot restore it to the original location. Restore of any image requires that the client have an exclusive lock of the volume you are restoring to, so the system drive cannot be restored since Tivoli Storage Manager is unable to lock the system drive. You can restore an image backup of the system drive to an alternate location.
• Because of different system component configurations, the system image not be consistent across components (such as Active Directory). Some of these components can be configured to use different volumes where parts are installed on the system drive and others to non-system volumes.
• Install the Tivoli Storage Manager client program on the system drive. The client cannot restore an image to the same volume where the client program is installed.
• Image backup is only supported on volumes that have a mount point or a drive letter assigned. Tivoli Storage Manager will not back up a volume without a mount point or drive letter.
• If bad disk sectors are detected on the source drive during a LAN-free or LAN-based image backup, data corruption occur. In this case, bad sectors are skipped when sending image data to the Tivoli Storage Manager server. If bad disk sectors are detected during the image backup, a warning message is issued after the image backup completes.