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WHS and backing up specific folders easily and how to back up the server data to USB drive...Pack 2 is installed. RRS feed

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    1)  I have the connector software installed on several computers at the house, I was ready to start backing them up, but I do not want an image of the entire drive, rather I want to pull a "migration wizard" style backup.  Just documents and settings and such.  Total savings is about 30 GB...x5 = well you see where this is going.

    I have the image software on a separate partition and would be willing to reinstall these machines vice haveing 150 GB of data taking up space when I really only want about 1-5gb of actual data.

    My first attempt was to back up the computer excluding the C:\, well that works, but I have to add the C:\ to enable the back up and then exclude all other folders, tedious at best. 

    Isn't there an easier way?

    2) I want to back up the server data to USB once a week.  The server does not show up in the back ups and the stuff on the web just insist that plugging in a USB drive will enable a wizard for this function, well I must be missing something, because when I plug in a usb hard drive it just adds a drive letter...Nothing more.

    Any idea what I did not do/did not check?

    Thanks for the help
    Thursday, May 7, 2009 5:04 PM

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    Windows Home Server backup and restore was designed to make the process of fully restoring a failed computer as easy for a non-technical person do perform as possible. As such, there is no easy way to exclude folders from a backup other than one at a time. The idea is that you will restore a disk image, and be back up and running with all software within a matter of a few hours.

    You won't save nearly as much space as you think by excluding most folders; Windows Home Server backup uses something similar to "single instance storage" to store backups. If multiple computers (or multiple backups) have exactly the same cluster of data, only one copy of that cluster is stored in the backup. All backups that include that cluster will reference the single copy. This results in a significantly smaller backup storage pool than traditional methods, because very little changes from backup to backup. The bottom line is that almost everybody is better served by "letting Windows Home Server do it's thing" rather than trying to take control of the backup process.

    For more information about home computer backup and restore, see the corresponding technical brief.

    As for server share backup (documented in the help file):
    • Connect a USB disk.
    • Start the Windows Home Server console.
    • A non-storage hard drive will be listed. Right click and choose to add it.
    • You'll get the option of using it as a backup drive, or adding it to the storage pool. Choose the former.
    • Now on the Computers and Backup tab, your server is listed. You can choose which shares you want to back up, and then run a backup.
    • When you're done and want to take the drive off-site, go back to the storage tab and right click the drive.
    • Choose to remove it temporarily. Windows Home Server will tell you when it's safe to disconnect. 
    Choosing to remove the drive temporarily will allow the backups stored on the drive to remain there, and Windows Home Server will recognize it as a backup drive when you connect it again. Note that A) you can't automate the server share backup process, and B) you can only back up the shares.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Thursday, May 7, 2009 6:14 PM
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    Windows Home Server backup and restore was designed to make the process of fully restoring a failed computer as easy for a non-technical person do perform as possible. As such, there is no easy way to exclude folders from a backup other than one at a time. The idea is that you will restore a disk image, and be back up and running with all software within a matter of a few hours.

    You won't save nearly as much space as you think by excluding most folders; Windows Home Server backup uses something similar to "single instance storage" to store backups. If multiple computers (or multiple backups) have exactly the same cluster of data, only one copy of that cluster is stored in the backup. All backups that include that cluster will reference the single copy. This results in a significantly smaller backup storage pool than traditional methods, because very little changes from backup to backup. The bottom line is that almost everybody is better served by "letting Windows Home Server do it's thing" rather than trying to take control of the backup process.

    For more information about home computer backup and restore, see the corresponding technical brief.

    As for server share backup (documented in the help file):
    • Connect a USB disk.
    • Start the Windows Home Server console.
    • A non-storage hard drive will be listed. Right click and choose to add it.
    • You'll get the option of using it as a backup drive, or adding it to the storage pool. Choose the former.
    • Now on the Computers and Backup tab, your server is listed. You can choose which shares you want to back up, and then run a backup.
    • When you're done and want to take the drive off-site, go back to the storage tab and right click the drive.
    • Choose to remove it temporarily. Windows Home Server will tell you when it's safe to disconnect. 
    Choosing to remove the drive temporarily will allow the backups stored on the drive to remain there, and Windows Home Server will recognize it as a backup drive when you connect it again. Note that A) you can't automate the server share backup process, and B) you can only back up the shares.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Thursday, May 7, 2009 6:14 PM
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    Windows Home Server backup and restore was designed to make the process of fully restoring a failed computer as easy for a non-technical person do perform as possible. As such, there is no easy way to exclude folders from a backup other than one at a time. The idea is that you will restore a disk image, and be back up and running with all software within a matter of a few hours.

    You won't save nearly as much space as you think by excluding most folders; Windows Home Server backup uses something similar to "single instance storage" to store backups. If multiple computers (or multiple backups) have exactly the same cluster of data, only one copy of that cluster is stored in the backup. All backups that include that cluster will reference the single copy. This results in a significantly smaller backup storage pool than traditional methods, because very little changes from backup to backup. The bottom line is that almost everybody is better served by "letting Windows Home Server do it's thing" rather than trying to take control of the backup process.

    For more information about home computer backup and restore, see the corresponding technical brief.

    As for server share backup (documented in the help file):
    • Connect a USB disk.
    • Start the Windows Home Server console.
    • A non-storage hard drive will be listed. Right click and choose to add it.
    • You'll get the option of using it as a backup drive, or adding it to the storage pool. Choose the former.
    • Now on the Computers and Backup tab, your server is listed. You can choose which shares you want to back up, and then run a backup.
    • When you're done and want to take the drive off-site, go back to the storage tab and right click the drive.
    • Choose to remove it temporarily. Windows Home Server will tell you when it's safe to disconnect. 
    Choosing to remove the drive temporarily will allow the backups stored on the drive to remain there, and Windows Home Server will recognize it as a backup drive when you connect it again. Note that A) you can't automate the server share backup process, and B) you can only back up the shares.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)

    Ken,

    In the instructions above you mentioned "Connect a USB disk"...what about an "eSATA disk"?

    I'm asking because I was using an USB disk for a while and everything worked as expected. However, once I switched to an eSATA disk, I lost the ability to temporarily remove the disk. Do you know if this is a "known limitation" with using an eSATA drive for server backups?

    I've been searching around various forums for a while trying to find the answer and have found people with the same problem when using an eSATA drive, but no answers on whether this is a problem with all eSATA drives or just some.

    Thanks!
    Wednesday, July 8, 2009 8:32 PM
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    eSATA is, effectively, the same as SATA. If the operating system and the hardware can't distinguish between a SATA disk and an eSATA disk (and often they can't, particularly if your SATA controllers are configured for legacy IDE mode) then the disk won't be hot-swappable. So if you want to use eSATA with your server, you might have to shut down your server to remove the disk.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Wednesday, July 8, 2009 9:45 PM
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    eSATA is, effectively, the same as SATA. If the operating system and the hardware can't distinguish between a SATA disk and an eSATA disk (and often they can't, particularly if your SATA controllers are configured for legacy IDE mode) then the disk won't be hot-swappable. So if you want to use eSATA with your server, you might have to shut down your server to remove the disk.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)

    Accepting for the moment that (from everything I've found so far) eSATA drives used for backups will not be given the option to be "temporarily removed", I'm inclined to consider this a bug or an unimplemented feature rather than a technical impossibility for the following reasons:

    1) In many cases it is possible to detect eSATA vs. SATA...and this appears to be he case with my HP EX470 which shows the eSATA drive as External(SATA) under the Location column under Server Storage. This may be using a plug-in that also displays the drive bay # for each drive in my EX470, but it still shows that the information is available and WHS probably isn't bothering to look for it.

    2) If I can hot-swap my internal drives in my EX470, why in the world shouldn't I be able to hot-swap my external eSATA drive? Is hot-swapping SATA drives just an HP MSS EX47x feature or is it a basic feature of WHS?

    I guess there's a chance that the SATA and eSATA controllers are different on the EX470 and the eSATA controller doesn't support hot-swap (unlikely, but possible).


    In any case, I've accepted the fact that the current release of WHS won't give me the choice to "temorarily remove" the eSATA drive, and since I'm not comfortable with the "shut down and remove the eSATA drive" approach (because it isn't a supported method and it is inconvenient) I guess I'll have to use the USB connection instead. I'm just disappointed because I was planning on having a few backups drives using a eSATA dock and was hoping to take advantage of faster eSATA speeds. Oh well, time for Plan B.
    Wednesday, July 8, 2009 10:03 PM
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    I've had great success using the Hotswap! utility along with WHS (in cases the device does not appear removable, it will safely disable the device for you)
    Sunday, July 12, 2009 7:57 AM
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    This thread almost answers the questions I came here to answer.

    Additional Qs:

    1) What if I have two of these portable hard drives? Can I make them both known to WHS and use them alternately for shares backup?

    2) Once I remove one of them temporarily, is there anything that would preclude putting the drive on another machine and adding more data (different file/folder) or is the WHS shares backup not organized in files/folders within the existing file system?

    The reason I ask is that I have two 500GB 2.5" portables and want to use them as rotating offsite backup storage devices. But I want to be able to store not just the WHS shares stuff but some stuff from other machines as well. If need be, I'll drag'n'drop the shares data from a client machine and not use the WHS shares backup capability.

    Thanks for any thoughts!
    Sunday, August 30, 2009 6:16 PM
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    1. Yes. You can rotate backups off-site this way, for example.
    2. No. Backups are stored in folders named according to the date/time of the backup. When you add the drive to the server for backup, you can choose to format it or preserve the existing data. If you choose to preserve the existing data, everything already on the drive is left intact. In either case, once it's a Windows Home Server backup drive, Windows Home Server should not continue to offer to format the drive when you reconnect it.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    • Proposed as answer by Dick Watson Sunday, August 30, 2009 9:56 PM
    Sunday, August 30, 2009 9:28 PM
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    Sounds like it works as I'd desire. Just what I wanted to know before getting committed...
    Sunday, August 30, 2009 9:56 PM
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    When you add the drive to the server for backup, you can choose to format it or preserve the existing data. If you choose to preserve the existing data, everything already on the drive is left intact.

    I'm not getting that choice. I go to Add. It offers the dialog box to pick from adding it to the pool or using it for backup. I pick backup. I get the choice for picking a label. I pick one. I get a ! message saying "warning: if you click finish, the new hard drive will be formatted." It says if I click cancel the drive will not be formatted. Since I already have other data on the drive and do NOT want to format it, I click cancel. Not only is it not formatted--a good thing--but it also isn't enabled, apparently, for backing up the shares data as I do not see WHS added to the Computers & Backup tab.

    Drive is FAT32 if it makes a difference and was last written on a Vista machine. When I open a desktop on the WHS, the drive and its data appear just fine.
    Saturday, September 12, 2009 3:57 PM
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    In order to use hard links (which Windows Home Server uses to allow multiple backups of shares to a drive without using enormous amounts of disk space), the drive must be formatted with the NTFS file system. That will happen when adding as a backup drive, if it's not already formatted that way. So convert it to NTFS first. :)
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    • Proposed as answer by Dick Watson Saturday, September 12, 2009 8:30 PM
    Saturday, September 12, 2009 4:18 PM
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    I wondered about that but didn't want to do anything rash without asking the pioneers.

    Converted it and all is well. Thanks again.
    Saturday, September 12, 2009 8:30 PM
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    I'm sometimes tempted to steal a line from Jerry Pournelle to put in my .sig:

    "I do silly things so you don't have to."

    So for example, if I assert that "X will break your server." it's because I've tried X in a laboratory environment, and satisfied myself that it's fatal. :)
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Sunday, September 13, 2009 1:48 AM
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