New Windows Server Backup Features in Windows Server 2008 R2

Backup specific files and folders, rather than having the volume as the minimum unit of backup.

Configure backups to exclude specific files, folders or file types, rather than backing up everything on the volume.

Allow backup of the system state data only (including incremental system state backups). Prior to R2 you could only perform a full system state backup using the wbadmin.exe command line utility. System state backups can be scheduled, written to network shares and scheduled with other items as the figure below shows. Incremental system state backups are, on average, five times faster and consume seven times less space (compared to a system state backup taken daily over the course of a week). You can also perform a system state restore using Windows Server Backup in R2 rather than just the wbadmin command line utility.

Allows you to schedule backup to volumes (rather than requiring the whole target disk be dedicated to backup) and network shares. Prior to R2 you had to schedule back ups to a dedicated disk (the disk was repartitioned to a single volume when you selected it as a target). You couldn’t schedule a backup to network locations.

Windows Server Backup R2 also includes extensive PowerShell support which will enable you to manage (including remotely) the scheduled and on-demand backups.