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Virtualization Rebuild; Thoughts?


Quinn

Question

I have been running a "server" for a number of years with both Scanner and DrivePool being an integral part of it all (I LOVE these products!!!).  I think it's time to redesign my current virtualization environment, and I wanted to know what you guys think:

 

My current setup:

 

"Host" (running Win10 Pro w/Client Hyper-V):

- Scanner and DrivePool for media, backups, VMs, etc.

- CrashPlan for offsite backups (~10 incoming clients)

- Plex Media Server (doing occasional transcodes)

- Multiple VMs (Win7 for WMC recording, Win10 testing, VPN appliance, UTM appliance, etc.)

 

I feel like the current setup is getting a little too "top-heavy".  My biggest pain points are the fact that I have to bring down the entire environment every time M$ deploys patches, and a lack of clean backups for the VMs that are getting more-and-more important.  Being the budget is a big concern, I'm hoping to re-work my existing environment...

 

My proposed setup:

 

"Host" running Hyper-V Server, CrashPlan, Scanner and DrivePool

VM for Plex Media Server, targeting shares on host

VM for WMC TV recording, moving recordings to host share

Etc., etc...

 

I believe this design will allow the host to be more stable and help with uptime...what do you guys think of this?  I know I can install and run CrashPlan, Scanner and DrivePool on Hyper-V server, but I've never done any long-term testing...

 

Also, can anyone recommend a good, free way to backup those VMs with Hyper-V Server?  If I can get a backup of those VMs onto the DrivePool array and sent offsite via CrashPlan, that would be perfect :)

 

-Quinn

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As for top heavy, I definitely undertand. And in cases like that, it's very important to have a good, working backup. Windows 10 does include some backup functionality for this. 

 

 

I'm not sure if HyperV Server supports it, but Windows Server backup will backup the VMs actually.  I've used it to restore VMs in the past, though. 

At worst, you'd need to use the "wbadmin" command line tool to set this up. 

 

 

 

Additionally, Veeam is a fairly popular backup solution and they appear to have a free HyperV backup solution: 

https://hyperv.veeam.com/

I don't think it's meant for Hyper-V Server, by it may work. 

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I have almost the same setup as you, i run 2-3 VMs ontop of Windows 10 Pro with Hyper-V on my Drivepool fileserver, works great BUT i wanted more vm's to play with and could not risk the file server for this role. I decided to build a new box exclusively for Virtual Machines using a cheap celeron, plenty of ram and a 240GB SSD, the Stablebit fileserver will be left alone running only a antivirus on it, everything else will be moved to the new vm box.

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