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Backing up WHS with Carbonite or something similar RRS feed

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    Hi. As I have not yet installed WHS, I was wondering will I be able to run carbonite (www.carbonite.com) on a WHS? The interface for WHS looks very customised so I am not sure if you can install 'other' (non MS) software on it?

     

    I currently run it on my PC and love knowing my files are backed up online. Part of the benefit as I see it with WHS is that the home PC (and the others around the house) do not need to be turned on to access my files. But this means that carbonite will need to run on the WHS and not on any of the PC's to be the case.

     

    Thanks,

     

    Jason.

    Saturday, June 23, 2007 8:22 AM

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    You can still use it but it only backs up local drives so you won't be able to use it for any of your shares.

    The only online backup for WHS so far that I have seen is KeepVault
    Saturday, June 23, 2007 8:47 AM

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    You can still use it but it only backs up local drives so you won't be able to use it for any of your shares.

    The only online backup for WHS so far that I have seen is KeepVault
    Saturday, June 23, 2007 8:47 AM
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    Thanks for the answer. But do you mean I can install carbonite on the WHS machine? This is what I want to do, so that my valuable files (e.g. photos) will all on the WHS - which would (if it can) run carbonite to back up these files.

     

    Point being - you say carbonite won't do shares, but will it run on WHS and back up files on there?

     

    Cheers!

    Saturday, June 23, 2007 6:28 PM
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     jasmer4534534534534 wrote:

    Thanks for the answer. But do you mean I can install carbonite on the WHS machine? This is what I want to do, so that my valuable files (e.g. photos) will all on the WHS - which would (if it can) run carbonite to back up these files.

    Point being - you say carbonite won't do shares, but will it run on WHS and back up files on there?

    Cheers!



    Since all of you valuable files are stored in the Shares, Carbonite is pretty much useless on the WHS.  I tried to get it to backup my photos, and it didn't work.  The only thing that has worked so far is keepvault.

    Saturday, June 23, 2007 6:42 PM
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    Back in the days of Beta 2, I was successfully running Carbonite to backup the shared folders on my WHS. I just specified the appropriate folders on the d: drive IIRC.  Did they change something in RC1?
    Saturday, June 23, 2007 10:43 PM
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    In case you haven't seen it yet, here is an excellent discussion of your backup options from another post.
    Monday, June 25, 2007 11:36 PM
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     bob3902 wrote:
     jasmer4534534534534 wrote:

    Thanks for the answer. But do you mean I can install carbonite on the WHS machine? This is what I want to do, so that my valuable files (e.g. photos) will all on the WHS - which would (if it can) run carbonite to back up these files.

    Point being - you say carbonite won't do shares, but will it run on WHS and back up files on there?

    Cheers!



    Since all of you valuable files are stored in the Shares, Carbonite is pretty much useless on the WHS.  I tried to get it to backup my photos, and it didn't work.  The only thing that has worked so far is keepvault.

     

    That seems odd considering that the shares are pointing to local drives on WHS so I don't see why you wouldn't be able to back them up as carbonite does. Haven't tried it, but logic says it should work.

    Tuesday, June 26, 2007 2:29 PM
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    Actually this is one of the questions that I had about WHS (specifically the EX470) being able to run Carbonite.  One of Carbonite's senior technical people posted in another forum a few months ago that in fact Carbonite would work fine on WHS but it wasn't officially supported.

    Does the pooled virtual drive show up as a physical disk or a virtual path in WHS?  This might have something to do with whether or not Carbonite will back up the files on that volume/path.


    Wednesday, June 25, 2008 12:55 AM
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     Jason583746 wrote:
    Actually this is one of the questions that I had about WHS (specifically the EX470) being able to run Carbonite.  One of Carbonite's senior technical people posted in another forum a few months ago that in fact Carbonite would work fine on WHS but it wasn't officially supported.

    Does the pooled virtual drive show up as a physical disk or a virtual path in WHS?  This might have something to do with whether or not Carbonite will back up the files on that volume/path.

     

    The storage pool in WHS uses volume mount points and reparse points to create the illusion of "one big hard drive".  However, the actual files are stored on various drives throughout WHS (and WHS controls where the files get stored, you don't).

     

    (As a side note, Amazon has a beta version of Jungle Disk for WHS.  This is what I use and it works great.)

    Wednesday, June 25, 2008 1:01 AM
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    I would consider Jungle Disk but the costs are substantially higher.  I can back up everything that I need to with Carbonite for $50 per year.  Jungle Disk would run me $150 per year plus transfer costs, so probably close to $200 a year.

    Does anyone else have any experience with Carbonite working under WHS with pooled storage on multiple drives?
    Wednesday, June 25, 2008 2:57 AM
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    I used Carbonite when I was running the beta, but I switched to Idrive at some point.  I have more than 50GB of content to back up, and Carbonite was going to cost more, if I recall correctly.
    Wednesday, June 25, 2008 1:03 PM
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    I tried Carbonite and it simply would not backup Shares.  Here is the last email from them to me:

     

    Hello and thank you for contacting Carbonite Customer Support.

     

    We apologize for the trouble that you have been experiencing with Carbonite.  We are sorry that it did not work as you had anticipated and I see you say you were on Windows Home Server.  Carbonite currently wasn't built or tested for Server environments and that could be one reason as to why the files were not getting backed up.  It appeared that Carbonite was not able to access any of the files in question to be able to back them up.

     

    Thank you for using Carbonite!

     

    Sincerely,

     

    Raul

    Carbonite Customer Support

    www.carbonite.com

    Backup. Simple.

     

     

    Also, their Customer Support is really bad.  It takes 72 hours for an email response to an inquiry.  And then 72 more hours back and forth.  I am looking for another solution too.

    Ted

    Wednesday, June 25, 2008 2:35 PM
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    Even though it is more expensive I might be forced to simply go the Jungle Disk route until a better/cheaper alternative materializes.

     

    David Friend who is the CEO and founder of Carbonite publishes his email address and occassionally responds to questions.  His email address is davidfriend@carbonite.com.

     

    I would advise anyone interested in this functionality to send him an email about the lack of support for WHS in Carbonite.  I have sent him an email indicating that there is a large opportunity to sell a slightly pumped up Carbonite plan tailored for homes/families with WHS and that Carbonite might be missing the boat as this is surely the direction home networking is heading.

     

    Also, I have a question for the gurus here.  Is it possible to back up the "backups" that WHS creates to an external media source?  One concern I have about WHS is that this functionality might be missing.  I don't like the idea of backing up all of the PCs on my home network to WHS if a single hard drive failure will wipe out my historical backup data for the other machines on the network.

    Wednesday, June 25, 2008 3:30 PM
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    jmpage2,

    It is possi******le to ******ackup the ******ackups. The details of how to achieve this, are in the Technical ******rief for Computer ******ackup and Restore, availa******le to download here.

    Do note though, that any 'glitch', and you could well loose everything! THat is one of the reasons that the automated facility was removed from PP1.

    I have ******een doing this, ******y virtue of SecondCopy, for quite some time, and, as of yet, haven't had any pro******lems. Do note though the WHS teams warning.

    &n******sp;

    This functionality has never ******een a main consideration for WHS, as it wasn't designed as somewhere to store/view historical data. It was designed as a 'simple' method of re******uilding a Client computer, when it has a drive failure or corruption pro******lem.

    &n******sp;

    Colin

    Wednesday, June 25, 2008 6:19 PM
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     ColinWH wrote:

    jmpage2,

    It is possi******le to ******ackup the ******ackups. The details of how to achieve this, are in the Technical ******rief for Computer ******ackup and Restore, availa******le to download here.

    Do note though, that any 'glitch', and you could well loose everything! THat is one of the reasons that the automated facility was removed from PP1.

    I have ******een doing this, ******y virtue of SecondCopy, for quite some time, and, as of yet, haven't had any pro******lems. Do note though the WHS teams warning.

    &n******sp;

    This functionality has never ******een a main consideration for WHS, as it wasn't designed as somewhere to store/view historical data. It was designed as a 'simple' method of re******uilding a Client computer, when it has a drive failure or corruption pro******lem.

    &n******sp;

    Colin



    Thanks for the info.

    And, btw, it looks like the "b" key on your keyboard is busted.
    Thursday, June 26, 2008 3:26 AM
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    I saw that Carbonite only runs when the user is logged on. That's why it does not work in WHS. Otherwise, all the shared folders have local paths.
    Carbonite would need to create a specific app for WHS that would run inside the console.
    Carbonite targets a different market. People that have a single laptop. They'll throttle your uploads if you exceed a certain amount of data.
    But it's cheap..... really cheap.....
    Victor
    • Proposed as answer by vicenac Thursday, September 25, 2008 10:40 PM
    Thursday, September 25, 2008 10:40 PM
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    Hey,

     

    I just bought Carbonite to specifically back up the files on my WHS. This is what I found. You can not just go into your shared folders and back those up, it won't work. But you can go through My Computer and intot he D: and just start backing everything up there. So you can do it. Just have to work around the program a little. Hope this helps.

    Tuesday, February 15, 2011 8:11 PM