received a question from a customer earlier in the week that I felt was not properly answered in our documentation so here goes.
Q. John what is the difference between the Mailbox level backup and the Store level backup?

1.The store level backup is just that, it backups the entire information store,which includes the Mailboxes, public folders etc.It is used in the event of a disaster where the information store is corrupted and needs to be restored. Or in the event of a full disaster where the entire server has to be rebuild and you need to restore the information store from backup.It does not let you restore individual emails,mailboxes or calender items,at least not by default, it can be done with other third party add ons.

2.The mailbox level backup does just that, it backups the email within a users mailbox and their calender items allowing for a restore of the individual items onto the same server or store.The mailbox level backup cannot be used to restore the exchange email boxes to another store in the event of a disaster, that’s what the store level backup is there for.

In summary,if you want to restore the entire store in the event of a disaster and do not need to restore individual emails then a store level backup should suffice,if however you need both options then I recommend that you use both the store level and the mailbox level options together.