I really like Microsoft’s disk based backup software:”Data Protection Manager 2010″. It doesn’t have the fancy features which the grown-ups like backup-exec, ARCserver do have. But these features where hard to manage and use anyway. DPM got all the basic functions and a simple layout and works. I 
have never looked back since i switched from those old fashioned (virtual) tape library backup solutions. I still think it’s a quick hack for them to create a (virtual) tape libary and say it’s a harddisk based backup solution. It needs a architecture changes under the hood to truly use the advantages of disk bases backups.
And for half the cost DPM is a no brainer if you prefer a simple, clean and workable backup solution for a medium sized company.
But we were having some troubles backing up the “system state” of a Windows 2008R2 though our Microsoft DPM 2010 backup server. Our DPM server reported the following error in its console (and eventviewer):
The replica of System Protection on dc1.******.local is inconsistent with the protected data source. All protection activities for data source will fail until the replica is synchronized with consistency check. (ID: 3106)
DPM cannot create a backup because Windows Server Backup (WSB) on the protected computer encountered an error (WSB Event ID: 517, WSB Error Code: 0x80070040). (ID: 30229)