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    Hi:

    I just built my WHS box using the Shuttle KPC-45. It is running beautifull with 3 PCs and 1 iMac and my family is very happy with a centralized and organized system.

    I'm running 2 - 750GB hard drives. SATA 0 is the primary hd with the standard 20 gig partition and the rest for everything else. When I added the second hd, I configured as a backup ONLY drive.

    My questions are:

    1. The folder dupplication options are "grayed" out. Why?

    2. The PC clients are backing up fine at mid-nite, however the server does not backup itself. I normally have to back it up manually and it backs up fine to the second hd. Is there a feature somewhere I can automate the server backup?.

    Regards,

    Marc
    • Edited by WHS4u Sunday, February 8, 2009 4:24 AM
    Sunday, February 8, 2009 3:02 AM

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    Hi Marc,
    WHS4u said:

    So for a server with only 2 internal HDDs, I guess the best solution is to have both drives as part of the storage pool and enable folder duplication.
    Is that right??


    yes. This is the best configuration to make use of the feature set of Windows Home Server.
    Best greetings from Germany
    Olaf
    • Marked as answer by WHS4u Monday, February 9, 2009 6:03 AM
    Monday, February 9, 2009 4:57 AM
    Moderator

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    The answer for question #1 is that you don't have enough HDD's installed. You are only working on one disk so duplication is pointless. WHS duplicates data to a different drive so it is protected should a drive fail.

    I'm not sure about #2 but it may be your partition size is too small. I used a full 750GB drive as my system disk although I know it is overkill but didn't want to have to move it to a larger drive down the road. You may want to read up on the system drive size recommendations in the FAQ section.
    PACS Technical Support Engineer
    Sunday, February 8, 2009 4:04 AM
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     I think you missed that I have 2 (two) - 750GB hard drives installed. The second is configured as "Back-up Only" hard drive and there's 500GB free space available.
    Sunday, February 8, 2009 4:20 AM
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    Your second hard drive is not added to the storage pool, it's a backup hard drive.  This is why folder duplication won't work.  There has to be two hard drives added to the storage pool.  A hard drive can't duplicate and backup your server.

    What folders do you have setup to be backed up?  
    athlon 3400, 2gb ram, 9 drives totaling about 3.5 tbs.
    Sunday, February 8, 2009 7:27 AM
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    Hi,
    the backup for the server is nothing else than backing up the contents of the shared folders. This is not automated in the current version of WHS, if you want to do it that way, you can create a script based on xcopy or robocopy and run it as scheduled task. (These script based methods are less efficient, since the built in backup stores tombstones to unchanged files of the original backup to save space.)
    However, backing up to an internal drive is rather pointless (besides it gives you access to earlier file versions), because this is nothing else than folder duplication does automatically, if the second disk is in the storage pool.
    For backing up the server shares you should use one or more exernal disks, which are usually disconnected (or even stored offsite), since this backup is done for the case something is affecting your entire server (i.e. overvoltage, fire, theft) and makes it impossible to recover from duplicated disks. (Duplication only protects against failure of one disk.)
    Best greetings from Germany
    Olaf
    Sunday, February 8, 2009 1:23 PM
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    Enchanter & Olaf:

    Thanks for your replies. I do have a better understanding now.

    So for a server with only 2 internal HDDs, I guess the best solution is to have both drives as part of the storage pool and enable folder duplication.

    Is that right??

    I will also get an external drive as a secondary backup solution.

    Thanks for your help.
    Shuttle KPC45 - Intel Celeron 2.0Ghz, 2GB RAM, 2 750GB HDDs
    Monday, February 9, 2009 3:05 AM
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    Hi Marc,
    WHS4u said:

    So for a server with only 2 internal HDDs, I guess the best solution is to have both drives as part of the storage pool and enable folder duplication.
    Is that right??


    yes. This is the best configuration to make use of the feature set of Windows Home Server.
    Best greetings from Germany
    Olaf
    • Marked as answer by WHS4u Monday, February 9, 2009 6:03 AM
    Monday, February 9, 2009 4:57 AM
    Moderator
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    Olaf:

    Thanks for your help!

    Regards,
    Marc
    Shuttle KPC45 - Intel Celeron 2.0Ghz, 2GB RAM, 2 750GB HDDs
    Monday, February 9, 2009 6:04 AM