Overview
Microsoft 365 Backup Storage is a cloud-based solution developed by Microsoft to protect data across Microsoft 365 applications, including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams, all within Microsoft’s storage infrastructure.
It was designed by Microsoft to provide fast backup and restore capabilities that eliminate the challenges of recovering large volumes of content from remote, air-gapped locations.
❗IMPORTANT
Microsoft may make changes to the backup frequency and retention period in its sole discretion at any time without notice. Please refer to the official Microsoft documentation for detailed information on Microsoft 365 Backup Storage APIs and application lifecycle.
Feature summary
Feature | OneDrive | SharePoint | Exchange Online |
Retention period | One year (non-editable) | One year (non-editable) | One year (non-editable) |
Recovery points | 10 minutes for two weeks prior Weekly snapshots 2-52 weeks prior | 10 minutes for two weeks prior Weekly snapshots 2-52 weeks prior | 10 minutes for prior 52 weeks |
Restore speeds (RTO) | Up to 1,000 average-sized OneDrive accounts at a rate of up to 1-3 TB per hour | Up to 1,000 average-sized sites at a rate of up to 1-3 TB per hour | Up to 1,000 average-sized mailboxes at a rate of up to 1-3 TB per hour |
Manual backup | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported |
Multi-Tenancy | Not supported One customer can configure MBS for a single tenant. | Not supported One customer can configure MBS for a single tenant. | Not supported One customer can configure MBS for a single tenant. |
Geographic residency | Physically redundant & geographically replicated Honors tenant’s geographic residency requirements | Physically redundant & geographically replicated Honors tenant’s geographic residency requirements | Physically redundant & geographically replicated Honors tenant’s geographic residency requirements |
Billing
What Contributes to Protected Backup Storage Consumption?
Billing will be determined based on the size of the following content retained for 365 days from the time it is backed up.
Total Backup Size: This includes the size of all mailboxes, SharePoint sites, and OneDrive accounts being protected. For OneDrive and SharePoint, the size is taken from the live usage reports and includes the storage size of file versioning. For mailboxes, it includes the size of the mailbox, online archives, and deleted items held for backup.
Deleted Content: Any deleted content in the user’s Recycle Bin and second-stage Recycle Bin (also called the Site Collection Recycle Bin) is also counted. For example: If you have a site under protection that’s 1 GB in size during the first month, you’ll be billed for 1 GB of backup storage. If you delete some content and the site’s size reduces to 0.5 GB, your next bill will still be for 1 GB because the backup retains that deleted content for a year. After a year, once the backup of the deleted content expires, the charge will only be for the 0.5 GB still being backed up.