Giving up on WHS.. what backup?

[springtide]

Had just about enough of WHS. Love the functionality and simplicity, and it works really well backing up our three PC's in the house with the Lights-Out app - waking the PCs up, backing up and then shutting down the client.

BUT... For some reason (again - third time).. WHS has stopped working... The WHS services fail to start with unknown errors - meaning that once again I can't backup the backups - and reinstall and reimport.

Also have had a couple of H/W failures - which seems to render the box completely useless.

I have tried taking 'images' of the base install (as a reinstall takes ages as it doesn't recognise a lot of the hardware) with an old version of Acronis - but if you restore the image - all drives get a drive letter and the console is broken.

The Atom based board that I have can be a little slow for a number of other things that I 'serve' from it, so have just ordered for a low end i3 ITX. The Atom 330 doesn't support any of the VM CPU tech - so no chance of testing as well as one of the memory slots is now dead... so that board will be RMA'd once I have the new system up and running (I don't like no backups)

I do have another copy of my data elsewhere.. so just looking for a hassle free - set it up and forget system (which is why WHS is great - it reports when things go wrong)

My options....
1) Run WHS as a VM - under ESXi or Xenserver.
Xenserver seems preferable as I get access to the server and can schedule a shutdown (and use the BIOS - start-up at time option). With WHS running as a VM, Ican take snapshots - so recovery would be easier.

2) Switch to using FreeNAS, Openfiler, unRAID, Windows etc (native or under a VM) and use another backup application (Acronis maybe?) to backup to a network share. If native, I like the idea you can run FreeNAS from a USB key - and the data is kept separate.

I have used online backups in the past.. but I need an account per PC as well as not wanting my huge power sapping desktop on 24/7 to get my backups uploaded (have around 1.5TB of data currently) - so have ruled this out.

Anyone else have issues with WHS - or have I been very unlucky? Also, anyone running WHS as a VM?

After so much faffing with WHS and when it goes wrong you can't just deal with plain files to recover.. I'm starting to think that the NAS solution has advantages.

I know a new release of WHS is due.. and have access to the beta s/w.. but don't like running beta s/w for my backups.

Open to opinions....

 

[BiffBoy]

I use WHS in my own build Server with a variety of HDD's and rarely have any problems. Sometimes after a reboot it doesnt start but I think I remember this happening with the same mobo when it was a PC so not the fault of WHS.

What program did you use to make an image of the OS partition? There are options of doing this with certain programs but I cant remember which. I want to start doing this myself so will be doing some more searching for this. But I have read that a backup and restore of the OS partition is possible.

EDIT - apparently it's possible to clone and move the Sys partition to a larger HDD (not too complicated but takes a few steps) but it involves removing the OS HDD and attaching it to another PC along with the new drive for the cloning. Not really an option for a simple backup....

Also have had a couple of H/W failures - which seems to render the box completely useless.

This could happen which ever way you run WHS or any other s/w - sad but true. Just had a HDD go down in my HTPC and it was a pain!

 

[springtide]

I use WHS in my own build Server with a variety of HDD's and rarely have any problems. Sometimes after a reboot it doesnt start but I think I remember this happening with the same mobo when it was a PC so not the fault of WHS.

The issue seems to be definitely WHS rather than the h/w. After the last issue, I've run Memtest on the box as well as a full HDD scan.. both seem good (although to be fair one of the memory slots is duff). The problem that I have is that when it does bugger up.. it ends up being a full manual install again.

What program did you use to make an image of the OS partition? There are options of doing this with certain programs but I cant remember which. I want to start doing this myself so will be doing some more searching for this. But I have read that a backup and restore of the OS partition is possible.

I use Acronis Trueimage (2009) and have tried both a standard image as well as the sector-sector method.. both only seem to work if you replace the drive with the same one (which if failed - you can't do).
After re-imaging, the original drive appears as 'missing' (with the option to remove - greyed out) - where as the replacement OS drive is listed as a new drive (not added)... and that is also greyed out to add. All drives appear with a drive letter - which as you know is not how WHS is supposed to presents the drives.

EDIT - apparently it's possible to clone and move the Sys partition to a larger HDD (not too complicated but takes a few steps) but it involves removing the OS HDD and attaching it to another PC along with the new drive for the cloning. Not really an option for a simple backup....

This could happen which ever way you run WHS or any other s/w - sad but true. Just had a HDD go down in my HTPC and it was a pain!

The method of cloning the WHS disk sounds interesting. Any links?
Think the conclusion that I'm coming to is that WHS is a big of a 'hack' - which is hopefully a little better thought with the new version.
The reason why I'm thinking about bring up running WHS as a VM is that I'm liking the idea of being able abstract the OS from the hardware... I can then migrate the service to a new system if needed.... and recover a failed system very easily.
Don't really mind the system going down if I have failed h/w - and I know I've probably been unlucky... but what hacks me off is that there appears to be no easy/simple way to take a 'system image' of WHS to aid a speedy recovery.

I have also thought about running an SSD for the OS disk to increase reliability, but obviously size and cost then comes into play due to the way WHS uses the OS disk - but that wouldn't have helped the last couple of issues that I've had.

Anyway, thanks for the reply.... and any links would be appreciated

 

[chilli_pepper]

I've recently put together an UnRaid box. It's upto 3TB [1.5TB Parity, 1.5TB, 1TB, 2x250GB, 80GB Cache] and it's freaking awesome. For expandability your simply can't beat it. There is a vibrant forum community and a wealth of knowledge. It's stable and well designed - perfect for serving media, but equally efficient as a file server/backup solution. It's easily customised even for Linux n00bs.

I can't recommend it enough. It delivers on all fronts.

 

[BiffBoy]

For my OS disc I stupidly used an old ...(wait for it)....120gb HDD I had lying around, just to test out WHS. Another 5 HDD's later and I am up to 3TB and still using the old naff drive for my OS.

Even though I know anything copied to the WHS is put onto the slower naff disc first I really dont get any problems or slow downs over my Gigabit Lan.

Here's the link I found for the OS drive clone, it does mention how to get around the drive not showing up properly and the other probs you mentioned after your cloning efforts:

Guide: Successfully clone and upgrade a WHS system drive! - [H]ard|Forum

I would also like to see an easy way to backup the OS partition to an external drive with the option of a reinstall only finger tips away. I am praying that my knackered old 120gb drive doesn't die any time soon!

Although if it does a reinstall and a rebuild of the index looks like it is possible to get running again, but if I do want to swap that 120gb for a new fast 1tb drive I wish it was much easier.

 

[springtide]

Here's the link I found for the OS drive clone, it does mention how to get around the drive not showing up properly and the other probs you mentioned after your cloning efforts:

Guide: Successfully clone and upgrade a WHS system drive! - [H]ard|Forum

Thanks for the info. Glad it's not just me that has the same issue with reimaging a failed WHS box (but also not happy there is not an easy fix)

Hmm... decisions... decisions..... will do a little bit of testing..

 

[BiffBoy]

let us know how you get on, if you find a better way too! Good luck!!

 

[springtide]

Well, now back with WHS after many trials/testing.

What a week.. arrhhhhhrrhh.

As for "Virtualing" .... can't get ESXi (3 or 4) to see my NIC on my i3 board and have also given up with trying to mirror the data with Xenserver (FakeRAID or LVM). Without some form of RAID - disk failure causes to much of a risk to the complex recovery.

Played with a few of the NAS Storage options. I liked both FreeNAS as well as UnRaid - the fact you can boot from a flash drive. Works really well, although I think I personally preferred FreeNAS.

But I'm familiar with Software RAID (or even FakeRAID) on Linux as well as Samba... so I think my conclusion was that I preferred the flexibility of a full blown OS over a cut down NAS solution, which then got me thinking about W2K3 server.

So I tried Windows Server for a while. Got the box setup and happy... local backups working.. all looking good... just the Windows Desktop Clients to backup.

Then... the fun started. I have Acronis 2009 which seemed to work well. OMG, what have they done?? Trailed Acronis 2011 Home and it really was terrible. Backing up to the remote filesystem didn't seem to work very well as well as any previous backups it seemed to ignore and start all over again.

Tried a couple more PC Backups apps (that work with NAS) and they were pretty bad. After one broke my main desktop (and to revert to a Restore Point) - I gave up!

So now back with WHS.... but now running 'Vail' (beta).. Vail also seems to support my cheapo FakeRAID Si card, so have my data at least mirrored.
Been looking for a cheap h/w RAID5 card to replace my FakeRAID.. but they don't seem to come cheap. Did look at SSDs for the OS.. but you now need 120 GB (or was it 160GB) for the OS of Vail.
It does now use Drive Letter however.... so wonder whether this will help with recovery of the server (also seems to have build-in server backup and recovery - but haven't tried a full recovery yet)

Also have local backups of my main data.. just in case.. while I have a play with Vail. A new 'beta' release is due out early 2011 - but they are removing the data replication functionality.. but wonder if this might be a good idea as it appears that this is one of the causes of the complex server recovery you described above.

Anyway, been around the houses a bit.. but back with WHS.

Conclusion for cheap centralised (or remote storage) PC backup solutions... WHS is not ideal... but seems to be the best. It seems the pain of the recovery of my WHS is nothing compared to the time I've spent trying to get the other apps to work correctly.

Over and out... sorry for the brain dump.. hopefully useful for you to know not to bother changing... looking forward to the full release of Vail..

 

[BiffBoy]

useful info for me as I was itching to try something else for the heck of it....wont bother now!

 

[MikeK]

As for "Virtualing" .... can't get ESXi (3 or 4) to see my NIC on my i3 board and have also given up with trying to mirror the data with Xenserver (FakeRAID or LVM). Without some form of RAID - disk failure causes to much of a risk to the complex recovery.


Try Oracle/Sun's VirtualBox - it should give you all the features you need to virtualise WHS on any supported host OS (as long as the host OS supports the host PC's hardware properly) - it's still free, and pretty easy to use!

Downloads - VirtualBox

 

[springtide]

As for "Virtualing" .... can't get ESXi (3 or 4) to see my NIC on my i3 board and have also given up with trying to mirror the data with Xenserver (FakeRAID or LVM). Without some form of RAID - disk failure causes to much of a risk to the complex recovery.


Try Oracle/Sun's VirtualBox - it should give you all the features you need to virtualise WHS on any supported host OS (as long as the host OS supports the host PC's hardware properly) - it's still free, and pretty easy to use!

Downloads - VirtualBox

[ hope I don't sound ungrateful for the info ]

I was looking for a bare metal 'virtualisation' solution rather than one that sits in top of another OS. The idea was not to have the overhead of a full blown OS for running the hypervisor.

VMware have VMware server which is similar to Virtualbox.

I'd rather not touch Virtualbox now that Sun have been bought by Oracle
It was a very sad day for me when Sun Microsystems got bought by Oracle; but I guess Sun were not making money and Oracle are making changes to remedy this.

For completeness, there is also KVM for Linux - a linux kernel module - which is now Redhat's preferred virtualisation solution from Redhat 6 onwards (they were also supplying Xen for RH, but I believe it's being dropped in '6')

Back to Vail....

It appears to be working fine for me at the moment.... and there appears to be a full system recovery solution (client backups as well as shares) in Vail.
I'll give it a few weeks and will try their full system recovery. If the full system recovery works... I will be very pleased as it will have solved my original issue of a rebuild.

I was thinking again about Windows Backups to a NAS/File Share...... and I remembered that Win7 Pro and Ultimate allow backups to a NAS.
Well worth knowing if you have FreeNAS or UnRaid and are looking for a PC Backup Solution.

Not sure why Acronis 2010|2011 is so poor... the 2009 product seemed to work really well.

 

[the_beast]

Vail might not be a good option when the beta expires - MS have just announced they are dropping Drive Extender from the final release.

I haven't used it, but Amahi Home Server (based on Fedora Linux) may be worth considering if you don't want to go back to WHS v1. Seems to have all the features of WHS, but best of all it's free.

 

[springtide]

Vail might not be a good option when the beta expires - MS have just announced they are dropping Drive Extender from the final release.

I haven't used it, but Amahi Home Server (based on Fedora Linux) may be worth considering if you don't want to go back to WHS v1. Seems to have all the features of WHS, but best of all it's free.

Thanks. Just looked at Amahi Home Server and it looks pretty interesting (and nice features)..

The only downside is that the Windows backups part appears to be using the build-in Microsoft version for each of the stated Windows versions (meaning that in W7, you need Pro or Ultimate)

Not to worried about loosing 'Drive Extender'. TBH (and I'm sure people will flame me for saying this...) - I'm actually glad. I'm convinced that the backup/restore issues are related to the way 'Drive Extender' works - and have seen random performance issues when trying to stream 1080p video. Not exactly sure if Drive Extender was causing the occasional performance issues, but think it was likely. As Vail supports FakeRAID, this would be my preferred way for data protection. Even if you had the data 'duplicated' with Drive Extender - it didn't include the backup data and wasn't particularly easy to restore.

But not sure how MS will handle more than one HDD without Drive Extender, so maybe this isn't such a great idea of theirs. What's needed is a more modern filesystem like ZFS - this disk mirriring stuff is so last year

What will be interesting for me is if MS make it easy to backup and restore the shares and backups for the new beta. i.e. will I be able to complete a new install of WHS v2 beta xx, but restore the 'server backup' (which was missing in v1 - unless you used the 3rd party addon) - and restore the shares and backup data.