Windows
This tab allows you to connect new devices to Synology NAS, create backup tasks for connected devices, restore backed up data, and manage connected devices. Please note that, to back up Windows physical servers, Synology Active Backup for Business Agent must be installed on the target physical servers.
Create Backup Tasks
Before creating a backup task for your device, you need to connect your device to Synology NAS with Synology Active Backup for Business Agent. This section will guide you through the process of creating a backup task for a PC.
To add a device into the device list:
Install Synology Active Backup for Business Agent on the target device you wish to protect by either of the following ways:
- Go to Active Backup for Business > Physical Server > Windows and click Add Device to download the 32-bit or 64-bit installer for the device.
- Go to Synology Download Center, select your product model, and download the Synology Active Backup for Business Agent 32-bit or 64-bit installer for the device.
Note:
- To learn more about Synology Active Backup for Business Agent and batch install the agent to multiple devices with Microsoft Windows
Active Directory Service (ADS), please refer to this article.
- Active Backup for Business allows you to set up a template of backup task, helping you apply the same backup settings to multiple devices in mass deployment. You can go to Settings > Template to configure backup task templates. For more information on how to set up a template, please refer to this article.
To create a backup task:
Once the agent is installed on the physical server already connected to Synology NAS, a backup task will be created according to the matched template. You can also create more than one backup task for each device.
- Do either of the following to start the backup creation wizard:
- Go to Physical Server > Windows, select a device you want to back up, and click Create Task.
- Go to Physical Server > Task List > Create and select Windows task.
- Select Target Device:
This step only appears if no device is selected before you click Create. A list of physical servers already connected to the server will be displayed in this step.
- Configure Task Settings::
- Task name: Configure the name of the task. It is suggested to have a naming pattern for faster filter/search for the task.
- Source type: The following types of source are supported.
- Entire device: The entire personal computer including the device settings, applications, and all the files will be backed up in this mode.
- Backup external hard drive: You can choose to back up the entire device including the external hard drive.
- System volume: The system volumes including data and Windows system data, such as boot partition, system partition, recovery partition, WinRE Tools (GPT), and system reserved partition (MBR) will be backed up.
- Customized volume: Click Select then choose the target volume you wish to protect. Floppy drives, thumb drives, or flash card readers are not supported. Only external hard drive is supported.
- Task settings: The following task settings can be configured in this step.
- Enable Data Transfer Compression: Compresses data during transmission to reduce transferred data size.
- Enable Data Transfer Encryption: Encrypts data during transmission to enhance data security.
- Backup Destination:
Select a shared folder in Btrfs file system as the backup destination. During the package installation, the Btrfs shared folder "ActiveBackupforBusiness" will be created automatically.
- Backup Destination Settings:
When creating the first task in a backup destination, you can configure compression and encryption settings of the backup destination in this step.
- Enable compression at backup destination: Compresses data to save more storage at the backup destination.
- Enable encryption at backup destination: Encrypts data to enhance data security at the backup destination.
Note:
- The compression and encryption settings of a backup destination are not changeable after the first backup task is created. If you wish to use different settings for future tasks, please create a task in a new destination.
- Backup verification is not supported when compression or encryption at backup destination is enabled.
- Instant Restore to Microsoft Hyper-V or Synology Virtual Machine Manager is not supported when compression or encryption at backup destination is enabled.
- Configure advanced settings:
- Enable application-aware backup: Performs an application-aware backup to ensure application data is consistent.
- Enable backup verification: To enhance backup reliability, Synology Active Backup for Business integrates with Synology Virtual Machine Manager to verify the backups. After the device is backed up, the system will boot up the backed up device on Synology Virtual Machine Manager and take a video of the process at the same time. A preview of the video along with a notification email will be sent for you to ensure the backup device can be booted up properly.
- Take livevideo for … sec.: Specify the duration of the video according to your needs. The video will be played at 3x speed.
- Enable pre/post script: Enable this option to execute the selected scripts before and after taking snapshots of the device. Please select .bat files less than 32 KB. Tick Successful script execution required to continue if you wish to stop the backup process when the script fails to be executed.
Note:
- To ensure backup verification can be performed properly, please check the followings:
- Synology Virtual Machine Manager 2.3 or above version is installed.
- At least 3 GB memory on your Synology NAS is required for Synology Virtual Machine Manager to boot up the backed up device. Please refer to this article for more information.
- The cluster of Synology Virtual Machine Manager and Active Backup for Business backup destination are on the same volume.
- Your Synology NAS needs to be connected to the Internet to activate h.264 video codec if codec has never been activated on your Synology NAS before.
- 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 Back up in the Task List tab.
- 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.
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.
Note:
- To streamline the backup process, Changed Block Tracking (CBT) technology is adopted for backup of PCs by default. To ensure CBT is functioning properly, 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 uses VSS to take snapshots for devices and identify the changed block between snapshots. As a Microsoft's built-in technology, VSS 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 Synology NAS. In this way, you can save the bandwidth resources and speed up the backup process.
- 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 turned off.
Restore Physical Server
In the Windows tab, select the desired device and click Restore. Physical server backup supports the following ways to restore the backed up data.
To restore the physical sever to other platforms:
- 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.
To restore individual files and folders:
Physical server backup supports granular (file- and folder-level) restore through Active Backup for Business Portal. Administrators 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.
To restore the entire device:
Entire device restore: Entire device 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. For more information on restoring the entire device, please refer to this article.
Note:
- Backup tasks of physical server can be restored with the recovery media or accessed from Active Backup for Business Portal by admin (user), administrators (group), and the assigned account (user). This setting is adjustable on Active Backup for Business.
- For Entire device restore, the recovery media does not contain the backed up physical server data; whereas, the backed up data is stored on your Synology NAS.
Manage Devices
To delete a device:
- In Windows, select the device you wish to delete and click Delete.
- Please note that the backup data of the selected device will also be deleted after you delete the device. After you click Confirm Deletion, the device will be removed from the list.
To update the agent:
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 a 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.