2 ? - 2012 R2 Essentials Backup / SSD Optimizer

[Lo_Key]

Hello all.... 2 separate questions here that I hope I can get some help with.

 

1.  I've been using DrivePool on my 2012 R2 Essentials server for over 2 years now for storing backups, file shares, etc. at home and it's been great.  During that time, it's been backing up my HTPC where I had a single 2 TB drive that held all my media.  After recently filling it to capacity, I went out and bought and installed additional drives, downloaded a trial copy of DrivePool onto the HTPC to try before buying an additional license, and created my pool.

 

Only then did I realize that 2012 R2 Essentials will NOT be able to backup the pool due to the VSS limitations as I've read elsewhere in the forums.  I was going to have duplication turned off in the pool to maximize space since it would be backed up to Essentials but now that's not an option.  Is my only option to have a pool backed up to Essentials is to use Storage Spaces instead, which I've never tried?  Or, to go a questionable route, is it possible to create a DrivePool and then add that as a single drive to a Storage Space and then back that up?  While DrivePool duplication can protect me from hardware failures, I rely on Essentials when I accidentally overwrite/delete files and its also nice that I can do a bare metal restore to anything.

 

2.  The hardware in my Essentials server is a bit old, so I upgraded the OS drive to an SSD drive awhile back to help performance.  Now, I have an SSD with quite a bit of space left over not doing much.  Could I do one of the following to use it with the SSD Optimizer plugin: A. just add it to the pool and specify it as the SSD for initial copies into the pool and then move off entirely or B. partition most of the available space that the OS can part with and then add that?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

[Lo_Key]

Looks like I didn't do a proper search and the SSD question was answered here.  In short, yes, it can be done, but there are a number of good reasons not to.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Sorry for not getting to you sooner.

 

And yes, you can definitely use the SSD that way. It may (or may not) affect the performance. But more importantly, if the system needs to be reinstalled, it does cause complications. 

 

 

 

As for backing up the pool, you can back up the disks in the pool, but not the pool directly. And there should be no issues with enabling duplication on the HTPC, as the Client Computer Backup database uses deduplication, to reduce the size of the backup (which is great for the Windows files). 

 

 

 

However, depending on your exact setup, it may be better to use StableBit DrivePool on the server, and shift your data there. 

But that depends greatly on your exact setup.   

Alternatively, you could get a second license for StableBit DrivePool and use it on both the HTPC and the server. And any license after the first is discounted (so the second license would only be $15).

[Lo_Key]

Hi Chris,

 

thanks for the follow-up.  I unfortunately had further issues afterwards that I only found one solution for right now.  I went ahead and set it to back up each individual drive and not the DrivePool on the HTPC.  It still didn't work.  I then went ahead and moved the ServerFolders\Client Computer Backups folder from the Server DrivePool to directly on one drive and now backups are working.

 

That doesn't make sense as I had in the past had the Client Computer Backups folder in the DrivePool but turned off duplication for the folder.  After I get this initial backup done (been running over a day now) I'll try moving the folder back into the DrivePool, turn off duplication and see if I can take another backup.

 

As for moving the media to the server, I have Plex running on the HTPC and I'd have to see how it would respond serving the media.  The HTPC/Plex setup serves a wireless Roku so I'm hesitant to introduce more latency.

 

Are there any logs that I could check out to see why it still didn't work when I only used one drivepool?

[Christopher (Drashna)]

That's very odd that it wouldn't work while on the pool. 

 

If it continues to do that, then could you do this:

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Log_Collection

 

Also, could you grab the logs from "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Server\Logs" on the server and upload them (the above link should have an upload form). 

[Lo_Key]

Apologies for the wait on this, life has been a bit crazy.  The folders have been uploaded for both the Service folder and the Logs folder from the Essentials server.  I also referred back to this thread for the info.  Please let me know if you need anything else.  Thanks!

[Lo_Key]

Checking to see if the logs were received and if anything was able to be found in them.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Sorry for not gettng back to you on this.

 

It looks like it is erroring out on one specific file:

 

 

[01/27/2016 12:40:07   9c] MainService: Error: The Windows Server Client Computer Backup Service encountered the following error: Error code: 1 API name: WriteFile File: H:\ServerFolders\Client Computer Backups\S-1-5-21-771186806-4108909161-3458613774-1117.H.FileRecordHash.4096.dat Error: 1

[01/27/2016 12:40:07   9c] MainService: Error: The Windows Server Client Computer Backup Service failed at (564) of (admin\serveressentials\backup\pc\util\diskfile.cpp)

 

 

 

This is most likely a corrupt file (run a backup repair), or due to a disk issue (likely on the server). 

 

That it is the same file every time is a bit odd... but that's what the log does indicate. 

 

 

I'd recommend running a "chkdsk /r" pass on all of the disks in the server (and on the client, just in case). And if that doesn't help, maybe try deleting the Client Computer Backup database and restart.