Physical Server
To backup physical servers, Synology Active Backup for Business Agent is required to be installed on the target physical servers. You can configure the backup tasks for physical servers on DSM. There are three backup types to protect your physical servers: bare-metal, system volume, and customized volumes.
Before You Start
Please note the following:
- Install Synology Active Backup for Business Agent on the target device you wish to protect. You can either go to Synology Download Center or go to Active Backup for Business > Physical Server > Add device to download the 32-bit or 64-bit installer for the device.

- Configure a Template on Active Backup for Business. Go to Settings > Template > Create to create a template or select the default template and click Edit to edit the default template.
- Configuring backup settings of a template can help apply the same backup settings to multiple devices in mass deployment. To avoid gap between deployment and protection, a default template set to protect physical servers will be listed and cannot be removed. You can always edit the default template or add other templates.
- When creating a template, you can decide the backup type, backup schedules, compression, encryption settings, and the version retention policy. The restore permission of physical server backup is not adjustable. Only admin (user), administrators (group), and the logged-in account (user) owner can access the backup versions of devices.
Note:
- To learn more about Synology Active Backup for Business Agent and installing the agent to multiple devices at the same time by Microsoft Windows
Active Directory Service (ADS), please refer to this help article.
To create a backup task:
Once the agent is installed on the physical server and the physical server is connected to the server, a backup task of the connected server will be created according to the matched template. It also supports creating more than one backup task to each device. To create a new task of a specific device: Go to Physical Server, you can either start from the device view, select the target device, and then click Create to enter the task creation wizard, or go to Task List > Create, and decide which device you wish to protect later in the task creation wizard.
- Create Backup Task:
Task name: Configure the name of the task. It is suggested to have a naming pattern for faster filter/search for the task.
- Select Target Device:
This step only appears if no device is selected before clicking Create. A list of physical servers that have been connected to the server will be shown in this step.
- Backup Destination:
During package installation, a Btrfs shared folder - ActiveBackupforBusiness will be created automatically. Only Btrfs shared folder can be selected as the backup destination on the NAS.
- Select Source Type:
Three types of source are supported:
- Entire device: The entire physical server including the device settings, applications and all the files will be backed up in this mode. You can also back up external hard drives.
- Backup external hard drive: You can choose to back up the entire device including the external hard drive.
- System volume: Only the system volumes will be backed up.
- Customized volume: Click Select then choose the target volume you wish to protect. USB (Flash Driver) is not supported.
Task Settings: The source data can be compressed and encrypted when transferring according to the task settings. Click Task Settings and configure your preference.
- Schedule Backup Task:
- Manual Backup: Manual Backup means one-time only backup. After creating a backup task, you can run the task by choosing to back up immediately in the last step or selecting the task then click Run now on the console.
- Scheduled Backup: Define the desired backup schedule to daily or only on specific days. The task can run once a day or once an hour according to the settings. The backup task will be started when it is the set point of time on the defined days. For example, when the schedule is set as Run on: Wednesday and Saturday, Repeat type: Hourly, and Start at: 03:00, the task will start from 03:00 on Wednesday and Saturday each week and repeat running every hour until the end of these two days.
- Only run backup tasks within the allowed backup windows: Click Configure Backup Window to specify the time when the backup task is allowed or forbidden to be run in order to maintain the operational efficiency of the backup source device. Only the restore points scheduled by time will be displayed on the time slot since the restore points of manual backup are not predictable.
- Select Retention Policy:
In this step, you can choose either one of the following retention policy to apply to the created task:
- Keep all versions: All the backed-up versions will be preserved.
- Apply the following methods:
You need to set at least one policy if you check Apply the following methods.
Keep only the latest versions means the maximum number of the recent versions you may keep. The exceeding versions will be rotated based on the Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) retention policy or will be deleted when no other retention policy is configured.
Synology employs the Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) retention policy. You can configure the time ranges of backup versions to be retained for the following time ranges respectively: daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. If more than one backup version exists within a time range, only the latest one will be kept. For example, if you set a policy as Keep the latest version of the day for 1 day for the backup task which will be run every hour per day, only the version backed up at 23:00 will be kept.
Please note that every configured policy overlaps with each other. For example, if you would like to set the policy as keeping daily backup versions in the first three months, weekly backup versions in the second three months, and monthly backup versions in the third three months. Please tick the checkboxes and insert the numbers as the below picture displays.

The duration of 24 weeks includes the previous daily backup versions of 90 days, and the first weekly backup will be equal to the seventh daily backup. The duration of 9 months also includes the previous weekly backup versions of 24 weeks and daily backup versions of 90 days, and the first monthly backup will be equal to the fourth weekly backup.

- Backup now:
The wizard allows an immediate backup regardless of the schedule.
To edit one or more backup tasks:
It supports both editing tasks individually and in batch. Other than backup destination, most of the settings can be modified. However, in batch edit, the task name as well as the destination cannot be changed.
To avoid mistakenly change the settings that varied across different tasks, the settings are set to remain as they are by default. Tick the checkbox of the section that you wish to change when batch editing is required.
Note:
If you tick the unchecked the box before clicking Apply, the setting of the section would remain the same in every selected task.
To delete one or more backup tasks:
Go to Task List to select the task, and then click Delete. After confirming the action, the selected task will be removed while the data will remain in the backed up destination.
The device would still remain connected to the server even when no task attached to it. This device can always be found on the Device List, and you can create a task for the device at any time.
To enable Changed Block Tracking (CBT) technology:
To streamline the backup process, Changed Block Tracking (CBT) technology is adopted when backing up physical servers by default. To ensure CBT is functioning well, please make sure Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) on each protected device has been turned on.
The CBT technology adopted in Active Backup for Business leverages VSS to take snapshots for devices and identify the changed block between snapshots. VSS belongs to Microsoft's built-in technology, and thus it can avoid performance interference while Active Backup for Business is performing the CBT technology. After the first full backup, the CBT technology allows each device to transfer only the changed block to your NAS. Therefore, it helps you to save the bandwidth resource and speeds up the process of backing up.
Note:
- The first backup of each backup task will be a full backup, and CBT technology will not be applied to the first backup. From the second backup, Active Backup for Business will only conduct incremental backup unless the VSS service of the device is off.
Agent can be updated by installing a newer installer directly on the device. To remotely update the agent, administrators can install the newer agent on multiple devices with the existing Microsoft Windows Active Directory Domain Services or go to DSM > Active Backup for Business. You can follow the below instructions to update the agent from Active Backup for Business:
- When your Synology NAS is connected to the internet:
- Go to Active Backup for Business > Physical Server.
- Select the target device that needs an update and click Update Agent.
- When your Synology NAS is not connected to the internet but only private network:
- Download the Active Backup for Business Agent installer from Download Center, and upload it to any folder of your Synology NAS with File Station. Please keep note of the location of the installer.
- Log in to DSM with root permission on your computer. Please refer to this article for detailed instructions.
- Execute the below command to install the agent to your target devices.
cp /[volume_where_you_uploaded_the_installer_to]/[name_of_the_folder_where_you_uploaded_installer_to]/[installer_name]/[volume_where_you_install_Active_Backup_for_Business]/\@tmp/
For example, the location of the installer is /volume1/Files/Synology Active Backup for Business Agent-2.0.4-0621-x64.msi and Active Backup for Business is installed on volume1. The command would be:
cp /[volume1]/[Files]/[Synology Active Backup for Business Agent-2.0.4-0621-x64.msi]/[volume1]/\@tmp/
- After setting up, the agent will be successfully updated.
Restore Physical Server
Physical server backup supports various ways to restore the backed up data.
- Restore to VMware
- Instant Restore: This method converts the backed up images of the device to a virtual machine in VMware, and it can restart a virtual machine in VMware directly from a compressed and deduplicated physical server backup file to minimize the downtime.
- Full Virtual Machine Restore: This method converts the backed up images of the device images to a virtual machine in VMware, and it can be restored to the latest status or a previous point of time. This method takes more time and system resources but provides full disk I/O performance.
- Restore to Hyper-V
- Instant Restore: This method converts the backed up images of the device to a virtual machine in Hyper-V, and it can restart a virtual machine in Hyper-V directly from a compressed and deduplicated physical server backup file to minimize the downtime.
- Full Virtual Machine Restore: This method converts the backed up images of the device to a virtual machine in Hyper-V, and it can be restored to the latest status or a previous point of time. This method takes more time and system resources but provides full disk I/O performance.
- Instant Restore to Synology Virtual Machine Manager (VMM):
During urgent cases when tolerance for downtime is limited, mounting the backed-up image of your physical server on Synology Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) and power it on to continue your business could be your choice. To mount the backed-up image of your physical server on Synology Virtual Machine Manager, Synology Virtual Machine Manager requires to be installed on the same DSM.
- Granular (file/folder level) Restore:
Physical server backup supports granular (file and folder-level) restore through Active Backup for Business Portal. Admins are able to delegate the restore permission during the task creation and the task editing. For more information, please refer to the help article: Active Backup for Business Portal.
- Bare-metal Restore: Bare-metal restore is available with a recovery media. To restore the entire device or the backed-up volume, please create a recovery media in advance. You can refer this creation guide to learn how to use Synology Active Backup for Business Recovery Media Creator to create a media automatically or create a customized media. You can download Synology Active Backup for Business Recovery Media Creator in Download Center.
Note:
- Backup tasks of physical server can only be restored by admin, administrators group, and the assigned account. This setting is always adjustable on Active Backup for Business.