So you have server 2008 backup regularly backing up to a set of rotated USB drives...and the alternate(s) are safely stored (offsite or firesafe)
How do you confirm the backup will restore when you need it? Guaranteed (if the drive is readable the restore will produce a working server)
There are no ECC codes on the backup that I know of. I regularly restore random large zip files from the backups (to alternate folders) and check their ZIP check sums (thus the contents are good for that one file), but do I know the restore of the system files and most importantly the exchange database will work?
I would prefer to have a piece of software validate the drive rather than getting alternate test hardware and trying to restore every 6 months. How many small companies can buy a test restore server just to validate the backup?
Some concerns...I've read other articles that mention that if de-fragmentation is run on the server drives that the next stored backup may well trash earlier backed up files, does that mean only the most recent backup is valid (and again how to validate it)?