I am having great difficulties in understanding my backup problems with WHS.
I have been a user of WHS for 2 years. I built a dedicated WHS computer that has performed very reliably. However I became accutely aware of the amount of power that the server used, especially with 4 500GB drives. A friend recommended that I build a new WHS using an old laptop, as these consume considerably less power. I used a Compaq Evo N800v with an inbuilt 90 GB 2 1/2 inch hard drive. Realizing that this would be totally inadequate to replace my previous 2 TB of backup drives, I added an external USB 3 1/2 inch drive of 1.5 TB. I very easily attached this to the inbuilt storage in WHS and had it operational as integrated storage. However even after about 30 attempts, I was unable to even back up once! I remember that nearly all failures were "The backup server failed"
For reasons that I cannot now remember, I used the 1.5TB SATA drive in a new drive interface...ie a PCMCIA card that plugged into my laptop. Again it was very easy to attach the new storage to the WHS and have it operational. However, once again, it was impossible to backup any of my 3 other computers.
I was very excited to see the impending release of WHS Power Pack 3. After waiting for several days, it was finally available on Connect. After downloading and installing this, I was hoping for backup success. Alas, it made no difference. In total desperation, I did a totally new installation of WHS, including the progressive updates to Power Pack 3. Again no ability to backup. The backups would always start, but fail at around 12%. I should also mention that during the whole time with backup problems, other applications that I use on WHS worked perfectly.
In the WHS, View backups screen, the reason given was "The backup server failed."
On the client computers the message received was "The backup failed because the communication was temporarily lost with your Windows Home Server. Retrying the backup may resolve this problem"
Not now knowing what to do, I accidentally fell onto an idea of trying another storage device instead of the 1.5 TB drive. (I should mention that I had formatted the 1.5TB drive many times) My friend who suggested using the laptop had just bought a 320GB Imation portable hard drive with USB interface. He loaned this to me, and VOILA, WHS again backs up properly.
I am writing this inthe hope that someone can help me understand why the PCMCIA card with SATA drive would not work with backups, whilst the smaller Imation drive works perfectly.
I am also left with the problem of knowing what to do to get the 1.5 TB of backup that I need. Clearly the 320GB USB drive is far too small!
Please can anyone help to solve my dilemma.
