Backing Up the Data Partition Using an External Solution

Last updated on 2017-03-14 11:21:43

This article refers to the Barracuda Message Archiver firmware version 5.0 or higher.

Message Archiver models (excluding model 150) provide RAID storage to protect against physical drive failure. However, other environmental or catastrophic issues may occur that the built-in RAID redundancy cannot protect against.

For this reason, it is strongly recommended that the Barracuda Message Archiver administrator make use of the available mechanisms to back up the email data to an external location.

Use the steps in this article to back up the Barracuda Message Archiver message store using an external solution.

Drive Partitions

The number of shares on the Barracuda Message Archiver can vary. All models have share number 1, while higher model numbers may have additional shares. If there are additional shares, the share BMA_SMB contains these other directories. For example, a Barracuda Message Archiver 350 has one drive partition, BMA-SMB-1, which you would select to back up.

Here are the possible share configurations:

share numbers

1, 2

1, 2, 3, 4

Data Partition Backup

You can back up archives using your existing backup solution, such as Barracuda Backup, via SMB access to the Barracuda Message Archiver's data partition.

The Barracuda Message Archiver provides authenticated read-only access to the internal data partition via CIFS.

To do so,

Log in to the Barracuda Message Archiver as the administrator, and go to the Advanced > Backup page.
In the Backup of Archives section, set Back Up Archives via SMB to Yes to allow access to the message store as an SMB share.
Set a workgroup name and password to connect to the SMB share; note that the SMB share username is always smb:
Click Save to save your settings.

On the external backup solution, connect to the Barracuda Message Archiver using SMB, and back up your data. The Barracuda Message Archiver shares are published as: IP:/BMA-SMB-sharenumber