Note: Prior to creating a protection plan, you will need to create a store for keeping your archived data. See Stores and Store Groups for more information.


To create a protection plan for files and folders, select Create Protection Plan from either the Local Plans folder or from a remote computer located within the Remote Computers folder. Next, choose Files and Folders to begin the protection plan wizard for protecting files and folders.


Note: The Files and Folders plan type is not recommended for protecting Exchange and SQL. Instead, choose the Exchange Storage Groups or SQL Databases plan types.


The first step in creating a Files and Folders protection plan is to specify the folders to protect. Click the Add button on the Enter Folders to Protect screen and then use the Windows Explorer-like controls to expand the disks and folders that you want to protect. Click OK to protect the selected disk/folder and sub-folders. Click Add again to add another path to be protected by this plan. Repeat as needed.


Note: Once you've created a plan, you can refine your selection down to the file level via the Plan Settings action. You can also specify exclusions within the selected data. For instance, you could exclude all files with the .exe file extension. Excluding certain file types, such as images, audio, and video files, can significantly reduce the amount of data that is stored on your target storage device, and speed up execution of your protection plan. See Editing a Plan for more information.


Click Next on the Enter Folders to Protect screen to continue with the Add Files and Folders Protection Plan wizard. This step takes you to the Select a Destination screen to select a store or store group; the target location for your archived data. Highlight a store, then click Next to continue to the Enter Plan Name screen.


Give the plan a descriptive name, then click Next to continue to the Scheduled Task screen to set up a schedule for automatically running the plan. You can also specify a different user account for running the plan. See Scheduling Protection Plans for more information. Click Next to go to the final screen where you can review the settings. Click the Back button to change settings, or click Finish to close the protection plan wizard and create the plan. You will be prompted for the password of the account specified for running the plan.


See Run, Edit, Remove a Plan for information about using protection plans.