Windows Home Server - Backup Itself?

[kjackson09]

Can Windows Home Server make backups of itself?

My plan is to have 3 physical hard drives on my Windows Home Server

Hard Drive #1 - O/S only
Hard Drive #2 - 1TB central data (music, movies, documents etc)
Hard Driver #3 - 1TB data (complete backup of Drive #2).

The goal is to creat a stand alone server that contains music, video, photos, documents etc and also has streaming capabilities. Very little data will be stored on local PCs in the house.

HS sounds perfect for this application but it is unclear whether it can backup it's own data.

Help is greatly appreciated.

 

[RebateMonger]

You can't control which drive(s) WHS uses to store which data. The OS goes in a 20 GB partition on the first drive. All other data (backups and data shares) are distributed in a way that makes the most sense to WHS' drive extender system. All disks in the storage pool, including the system disk, are used to store data.

Power Pack 1 for WHS has the ability to back up data shares to a non-pooled hard drive. There's also a third-party add-in (free) that makes backups of the "backup database". If you want to have your second 1 TB drive as an independent drive (not part of the storage pool), then you can use it to back up your data shares.

Backups of the Server itself are the one thorn on WHS' rose. I'm not sure there is a way to back up the WHOLE server. The way it manages files is unconventional. You'd probably have to shut it down and use something like the old Norton Ghost 2003 to clone each hard drive.

On the other hand, as long as you make backups of the data shares, rebuilding a WHS server is fairly easy. If you choose to use the built-in folder redundancy, shared data files, in theory, won't be lost if a single hard drive fails.

 

[JackMDS]

I did not try Norton Ghost, I did try TrueImage and it does not work.

I BackUp the data to a USB Drive that is plugged in and does Not Join the pull.

http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/2...depth-external-backup/

As far as the OS it does not matter much since it would take about the same time to restore it or the Re-install it.

Since the OS is Not One that run additional working software it is not such a big deal to reinstall (unless you have a lot of add-one, they have to be reinstall too).

In any case thus far after a year of work my WHS never crashed.

 

[kjackson09]

Manual back-ups from time to time are not an issue, seeing as most of the information on the server would be music, video and photos. Other than the photos losing data would be more of an inconvienence than anything else.

So my question are:

1. After I have performed a manual back-up on to my external hard drive can this driver be taken to any PC and the mp3s, videos etc be accessed? Or can they only be accessed from a machine with Windows Home Server installed?

2. My aim is to use the server as the primary storage for data. Can mp3s, videos etc be added to directly to the server, or are they only backed-up from local machines?

Thanks.

 

[JackMDS]

In general.

1. Windows Home server (WHS) partition out 20GB of the primary for the OS and the rest is used for Files and backup storage.

If something happen to the OS it can be reinstalled onto its partition and it keeps the Data on the other Partition /Drives as is.

2. Windows Home Server is used for regular storage.
Music, Doc, Pictures etc. are stored in directories in their common file formats.

I.e. if you take the Hard Drive out and put it as Data Drive on another computer you can copy all the stored files to any other Drive on the Computer/Network.

3. Windows Home Server has the capacity to make through the Network scheduled Backup of other computers on the Network.

This is done by storing compressed "images" of the hard drive into the data space of the server.
http://blogs.technet.com/homes...mage-based-backup.aspx


In sum, if the hard drive is trashed Hardware wise then it does not matter which OS you have on it.

If the Windows Home Server OS Partition is ?trashed? you can refresh it without touching the Data.

You can take the Hard Drive out of the server and attach it as a Data drive to copy the Data files directly to another machine.

 

[mc866]

Originally posted by: kjackson09

2. My aim is to use the server as the primary storage for data. Can mp3s, videos etc be added to directly to the server, or are they only backed-up from local machines?

Thanks.

Yes you can add all of your data directly to the server, have it only reside on the server and access it from any of your network computers and also remotely if you have that feature setup.

Once the OS is installed it creates shared folders that you can just move your data two. For the PC's connected to the WHS there is a folder created called "shared files on server" here you will find your videos, music, photos, etc folders.

The file structure is setup as a network share and they can be accessed like this for instance
\\servername\videos

To ensure that you have the data in these folders backed up you just enable the duplication feature.

Take a look here for some screens on how this is all setup. I think you will get a better understanding once you see the screens here, make sure to check out all three parts.

 

[kjackson09]

Great information, things are becoming clearer.

To see if I have got this correct, can someone please confirm the following:

1) If my Windows Home Server has 750MB of total drive space (even if it is spanned across a couple of drives). I can back this entire thing up on a 1TB external hard drive. All file formats will retain their original format (for example an mp3 will remain and mp3 and a local PC backup (the compressed file) will remain a local PC compressed file. If I hook this external HD to a PC at my friends house, supported file formats can be played/viewed (eg. I can play the mp3s, watch the videos etc).

2) Data that has been added directly to the Windows Home Server (mp3s, photos etc). Can be duplicated on the WHS drive itself to increase protection. (this point I am not clear on).

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: kjackson09
1) If my Windows Home Server has 750MB of total drive space (even if it is spanned across a couple of drives). I can back this entire thing up on a 1TB external hard drive. All file formats will retain their original format (for example an mp3 will remain and mp3 and a local PC backup (the compressed file) will remain a local PC compressed file. If I hook this external HD to a PC at my friends house, supported file formats can be played/viewed (eg. I can play the mp3s, watch the videos etc).

Yes.

2) Data that has been added directly to the Windows Home Server (mp3s, photos etc). Can be duplicated on the WHS drive itself to increase protection. (this point I am not clear on).

You can enable Folder Redundancy on any or all shared data folders. That will cause WHS to place copies of files in those folders onto two different hard drives. If a single hard drive on your WHS fails, you shouldn't lose any data from shares where redundancy has been enabled.

All files are stored in standard NTFS partitions. So, worst case, you can always recover data from the individual hard drives. There's no striping or anything like that, so the files are whole and in their original format.

 

[kjackson09]

Thank you all for the great information. I have everything I need to proceed.

Looks like a Windows Home Server will be perfect for my application. Hopefullt this thread helped some others as well.

I will keep you updated on it goes.

Cheers.