backing up sourcesafe content without stopping sourceoffsite

[GrandPixel]

I currently have a script that shuts down the sourceoffsite service, uses ntbackup to back up the directories that make up all of the source code etc, and restarts the sourceoffsite service. This is run daily, and I would like to be able to back up the data without shutting down sourceoffsite. It was suggested that I might be able to use Shadow Copy along with ntbackup to do this. I'm not sure how Shadow Copy would help with that, but I would like to know what you guys at sourcegear suggest to back up the sourcesafe repositories without shutting down the sourceoffsite server. Thanks for your help.

SOS version is 4.2

[GrandPixel]

I just thought about the fact that I also have to stop the sourceoffsite service when I create a copy of one of the sourcesafe directories. Is there a way to do this also without shutting down sourceoffsite?

[lbauer]

I don't think it's possible to do what you want without stopping the SOS Server service. To the VSS database, the SOS Server acts like a VSS client. The SOS Server maintains a connection to the database while the service is running. This is like a VSS client always being logged in.

[GrandPixel]

I believe in windows server 2003, ntbackup will automatically pause write operations momentarily, create a shadow copy snapshot, complete write oparations, and then create the backup using the snapshot. This way, even though sourceoffsite is connected to sourcesafe, the backup can still be created. Is anyone able to confirm this?

[lbauer]

You can try it, but we don't recommend it. If someone's trying to do a checkin while the VSS database is being backed up, it could leave the files in an inconsistent state.