server 2012 essential s r2 backup

[Kevin Fonda]

Hi,

 

I recently bought an external Seagate 4TB drive to use for the server backup. I would like to also backup the 'client computer backups' folder which is on the pool. Is there any down side to partitioning the 4TB drive into 2 - 2TB partitions and using 1 for server backup and using something else to sync the client backups from the pool to the other partition? If this is not a problem which sync software would be best for this?

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Depends on where you set up the backups from.

 

If you use the dashbaord, it will want to dedicate the entire disk to backups. To the point of repartitioning and formatting the disk.

 

You can use "wbadmin.msc" to ... well, get a LOT more control over the backup configuration. In fact, I highly recommend this.

 

And .... you could use that "control" to backup the "X:\PoolPart.xxxxx\ServerFolders\Client Computer Backups" folder for each pooled drive, in fact.

 

However, I would recommend using the "back up to a volume" option. Just use one partition on the backup drive, and copy the client computer backup to that drive as well.

That way, you're not worried about messing with partitioning and the like.

 

As for copying over, there are a bunch of options. Microsoft SyncToy is a great free option, that's easy to setup.

But AllWays Sync, Free File Sync, SyncBack, etc are all good utilities to do this.

If you don't mind a bit of command line, using Robocopy and the Windows Task Scheduler is another great idea.

[Kevin Fonda]

Thanks for the suggestions, I just needed to know I wasn't going to screw things up too bad :-) Is there anything I need to know about restoring the client backups if I lose the data in the pool and need to put it back from the external backup?

 

On a side note... I noticed from another thread that you started using Emby. What are you using for the front end. I've set up the server on my windows server box and also set up kodi on the same box to feed a mysql DB and i'm running kodi on RPi 2's and PCs for clients. I love the combination and the ability to use Emby for remote access and transcoding.

Emby is like Drive Pool and Flirc in my opinion... these are elegantly designed programs that just plain work and the simplicity of the design is what makes the products great. Like the Flirc just simply showing up as a USB keyboard to the computer makes everything else behind it trivial.

 

Sorry for getting side tracked there.:-)

[Christopher (Drashna)]

To restore the client backups, stop the services for it, copy the files over, and start them back up. You may want to run a repair after doing so... but that's it.

 

 

As for Emby, I'm using the Emby Home theater app for the HTPC. But I'm using the web UI primarily, and chromecast.

If I was using games and other apps more, I'd consider using the Emby bridge for Kodi. But it works fine, as is.

The advantage to the Emby Home Theater app, is that if you set up Emby to use network shares (or use the path substitution), the home theater app will play the files DIRECTLY instead of transcoding and streaming them.  The downside is that you have to install codecs on the system manually.

I think this applies to the Kodi bridge as well. 

 

 

As for the Flicr device, that's pretty neat!

And yup, you nailed it on the head. DrivePool was designed to "just work" and to be very simple to use. We're glad that this design tennant definitely came across.

 

And Plex and Emby and Kodi are all very similar in that regards. With a lot of settings to dig into, if you really want.

[Kevin Fonda]

One last question...:-) any suggestions on how I should format the external drive for my backups?

[Christopher (Drashna)]

.... normally.

 

The default options should be the best for it. As the Server Backup code can be ... finicky sometimes.