You can configure Windows 2000 Backup to back up and restore all the mailbox and public folder stores on a server running Exchange 2000, or you can back up and restore only a specific mailbox or public folder store. However, if you are backing up or restoring multiple databases, you must be aware of the following issues:

• You should back up an entire storage group at one time. If you back up databases individually, the log files are backed up multiple times because they are shared by other databases in the same storage group.
• Storage groups can be backed up simultaneously because each storage group corresponds to its own instance of ESE, which runs independently from one another and has its own unique sequence of log files. However, you cannot simultaneously run two or more instances of Backup that back up databases from the same storage group. If you do run them simultaneously, the first one will complete successfully, but the additional instances will fail because they cannot read the databases until the first backup is complete.
• It is possible to run two or more instances of Backup simultaneously when restoring databases to the same storage group. To perform this type of restore, you must restore the databases to different temporary locations without selecting Last Backup Set for either restore, and then manually play back the log files using the Exchange 2000 ESEUTIL with the /cc switch for each database after the restore completes.

• You must perform these extra steps because a separate Restore.env file is created during each restore process. Each Restore.env file is used to find the beginning and end transaction log numbers. When two restore jobs are simultaneously restoring databases to the same storage group, the second restore process would overwrite the first Restore.env file if the same temporary location were used.
• When performing simultaneous restores of different storage groups, you can specify the same temporary locations for the restored log and patch files. The log and patch files are copied to individual sub-folders that have the same display name of the storage group containing the database being restored. This prevents different storage groups from corrupting each other's log and patch files during a simultaneous restore

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, Premium Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, Standard Edition
• Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server