********The ultimate WHS 2011 backup info thread******

Combat squirrel

Combat squirrel

Combat squirrel

Soldato
Joined
7 Aug 2004
Posts
11,294
Hi everyone, ok so the ultimate home server 2011 backup thread is here and I need some ideas, input and possibilities throwing around here.

Currently my home server is just what it says on the tin, its serving all my computers various files, its also got a shared drive to act as a backup from my main PC (use genie timeline to send files to this drive)

The server is:

I3 2100T with 2x 2TB, 2x1.5TB and 1x1TB data storage drives.

Now, obviously I want to back up this to another PC I have (DATA BACK UP PC), this PC I wish to use as a ‘final resting place’ for all my data. This PC is:

Pentium E2200, 4gb ram with 2x 2TB, 2x1.5TB and 1x500gb data storage drives.

Now I wanted to use freeNAS on the data backup PC, and create one large RAID or JBOD volume, this it does ok and its also shared the 6.7TB ‘single drive’ just fine on the network.

Now these are my issues, obviously WHS2011 doesn’t support more than 2TB in its backups. So I tried to get around this by simply using 3rd party software to read the data off the drives and plonk them on the DATAPC’s shared folder.

This doesn’t work, it always gets to around 2.5-3.5TB of stuff transferred and drops the connection, the backup software (called second backup) doesn’t like it, and I have to restart the transfer, now I have reason to think that the freeNAS build is dropping the connection, iv read rumors on the net that transferring gargantuan amounts of data will eventually cause it to drop.

Ideally id like to run genie timeline server on the server….as this software doesn’t care if the connection is lost, I can jus reboot and it will continue to transfer from where it left off, but it’s far to expensive.

SO im abit stuck, what do I do people ? Do I:

1) Keep freeNAS and try and find software similar to genie timeline server/ ‘time machine’ and just keep trying to transfer the data to the freeNAS (the freeNAS drive is a network mapped drive in WHS2011. And just reboot when freeNAS eventually drops the connection and allow the software (if any exists for free or a reasonable price, anyone know?) to eventually complete a backup.

2) Format the Data Backup PC and install windows 7 or something like that…….share each of the 2,1.5tb etc drives individually and use ‘second backup’ and create 5 different ‘backup schedules’ to back up each drive from the WHS2011 PC to the backup PC (I have reason to think that while long winded, would work the best, assuming the data pc running windows 7 doesn’t drop the transfer like freeNAS does).

3) Or another option ?

What do you guys do to backup your WHS 2011 systems ? Im assuming most on OCUK will have a lot more than 2TB on there server to backup...

Any input MASSIVELY appreciated.
 
Last edited:
My setup is

One Dell e 520 6GB Ram Q6600

2 2TB Drives 1 1TB Drive and a 500GB drive for OS.

Main OS is Windows 7 Pro x64 and this runs as a media server to 3 XBOX 360's and here's where it gets tricky, I have WHS 2011 running on a Virutal Box instance 2GB ram and 2 CPU cores dedicated to it I have backups set for both the server and my client PC's and I experience no drops in data transfer.

I have set up Virtual Disks across the available storage so that nothing is soley on one disk i.e the VB is on the Win 7 OS HDD so the server back up backs up to a Virtual disk on one of the 2TB drives thus giving redundancy.

It's quite a miss mash but it works superbly well, my idea was to move all server and media center duties to under one box as have 2 on all the time was just well silly.

Also to add all my movies are on a virtual disk instance on the VB server and streaming is as if it was on the physical level of the disk i.e no performance loss.
 
Last edited:
I get what your saying and its quite ingenious if abit mish mashy, you could have similarly got that result from RAID 1-ing each disk of course without having to run a VM.

Any input from else where with my above issssues?
 
Hmmm seems I mis understood your post, the only software I have use to back up to a remote location is Arcronis true image and it works very well. I haven't tried mass data back up though like you are attempting. But for selecting volumes and then backing up over the network it's ace.

The reason I tried this is that Windows 7 home premium didn't have this function built in, so Arcronis was my solutions. Weather or not it supports the 2011 kernal is another matter.

Seems not it only supports desktop OS's so this is out.
 
Last edited:
Combat, can you detail a bit more about freenas? I'd like the jbod feature of whs if its possible - looking to move to 64bit server software and I just don't like whsv2011.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom