Hi,

I work for a small business with 25 users and 2 servers.

1 server is the DC running Windows Server 2003/Exchange 2003.

We want a reliable disaster recovery strategy for this server without having to spend a lot of money.

We take regular backups but I have been advised that only an identical server will allow them to be restored easily.

I'm trying to come up with a solution that means we don't have to buy two servers at twice the cost everytime we upgrade. I'm toying with the idea of upgrading our DC more frequently (say every 3 years) and then using the old server as the recovery server (temporarily - until we can source a replacement server). However, I won't know whether the backups will restore on the old server until I try it!

We're planning to upgrade to Server 2008R2 in the near future so I'm hoping the backup tools will give me some success in restoring to different hardware (or perhaps I can use hyper-v if not).

So what I am wondering is whether it is a idea to use old hardware as a disaster recovery strategy (providing we regular test it obviously!).