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Server Backup and duplication question


ryanmc

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I am currently evaluating Drivepool and Drivebender and I notice that you both have the same problem with Server backups in that you both backup duplicates. So I will ask the same question here that I asked over there, how hard would it be to put the duplicates in a completely different folder structure so that it is easily unchecked when choosing which folders to backup? This new folder would, preferably, be outside the poolparts folder, or if it is inside that folder it could be like  poolpartsxxx/duplicates. This way we can just unselect one folder and it removes all the duplicates from the backup.
 
Thanks and I look forward to your response.
 

 

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Check the "Balancers" on the DrivePool UI. I believe the "File Placement Limiter" balancer may be what you want.

 

As for changing the folder structure... There isn't a "master version" of the file. So changing it like you suggest would at best add a lot more overhead to DrivePool for a relatively small gain. 

I'm sure Alex can explain this better than I, though.

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Check the "Balancers" on the DrivePool UI. I believe the "File Placement Limiter" balancer may be what you want.

 

As for changing the folder structure... There isn't a "master version" of the file. So changing it like you suggest would at best add a lot more overhead to DrivePool for a relatively small gain. 

I'm sure Alex can explain this better than I, though.

 

Thanks for responding. So if I understand right you are saying that I can use the "File Placement Limiter" to keep the duplicate files out of the poolparts directory, or organize them so they are not included in a server backup?

 

"As for changing the folder structure..."

I did not mean to drastically change the folder structure, only put the duplicates in their own dir so they are separate from the rest of the files so they won't be backed up with a server backup.

 

 

Thanks

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Thanks for responding. So if I understand right you are saying that I can use the "File Placement Limiter" to keep the duplicate files out of the poolparts directory, or organize them so they are not included in a server backup?

 

"As for changing the folder structure..."

I did not mean to drastically change the folder structure, only put the duplicates in their own dir so they are separate from the rest of the files so they won't be backed up with a server backup.

 

 

Thanks

 

 

Nope, but you can use the file placement limiter to control which drives are storing duplicated and unduplicated files. And if a drive is only storing duplicated files then you can exclude it and only backup the other drive(s).

 

 

 

The problem with changing the folder structure is that there is no master version of the duplicated files so placing them in a separate folder would mean that both copies of a file would be placed in that separate dir and thus by your idea (as I interpret it) both version of the duplicated files would be excluded from backup = no backup at all.

 

I would suggest you look at third party backup solutions. Either those that include de-duplication in which case it doesn't matter that you backup duplicate files or file level backup tools that you can use and backup the Pool drive (and not volume level like the built in server backup tool)

 

I personally use Crashplan which fits my needs but your's are probably not the same as mine :)

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I am currently evaluating Drivepool and Drivebender and I notice that you both have the same problem with Server backups in that you both backup duplicates. So I will ask the same question here that I asked over there, how hard would it be to put the duplicates in a completely different folder structure so that it is easily unchecked when choosing which folders to backup? This new folder would, preferably, be outside the poolparts folder, or if it is inside that folder it could be like  poolpartsxxx/duplicates. This way we can just unselect one folder and it removes all the duplicates from the backup.
 
Thanks and I look forward to your response.

 

 

If you are looking for a way to backup only the "master" copy of a file and not the duplicated part, then that is not possible.

 

DrivePool has no notion of a master copy vs. a backup copy. Each copy of the same file is exactly identical, and the copies can reside on any pool part.

 

If you want to backup your duplicated pooled files without backing them up twice, you will need to use a backup solution that does deduplication (E.g. the client computer backup engine part of the Windows Home Server 2011 / Windows Server 2012 Essentials). Alternatively you can use a file based backup system to backup directly from the pool (such as SyncBackSE)

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Hey there, sorry for dragging up this old thread, but are there any plans to 'fix' this in the future? i.e. for the pool to appear as a drive in the WHS 2011 backup list so it can be backed up rather than the individual drives?

 

I have a lot of photos and videos on my pool on my WHS 2011 server, and whilst they are duplicated, they take up twice the space on the backup - I've pretty much reached my 2TB WHS backup limit, adn trying to work out what to do next!!

 

Thanks.

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We would absolutely love to implement the Volume Shadow Copy feature in the future. But there is is literally no documentation on how to do so. So adding support for it would not be simple.

 

 

In the meanwhile, there is a solution that may work for you.

Get an external enclosure (such as the Lian Li EX503 enclosure) and create a second pool with only the disks in that enclosure. Then use a program such as Allways Sync, free file sync or the like, and sync the files from one pool to the other.

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Hmmm..... yeah - that's an option. I kind of like the history you get with a regular dedicated backup set, rather than *just* another copy! Your option would work really well if I could turn on MS file history on the drives inside the pool, but I don't think that works, does it?

 

I'm currently re-distributing my pool so that some drives only contain duplicates using the file placement limiter and then changing the MS backup options to exclude the drives that only have duplicates - this will drastically reduce the size of my backup set, but it taking a while to do, funnily enough!

 

I was half tempted to look at building a win 8.1 machine as a server, and possibly running WHS in a virtual machine, but I'm not quite there yet! Not sure if I need it or not, and haven't got the cash to fork out on a whole new set of drives and hardware to test it out.

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Actually, File History Backup doesn't seem to have an issue using a Pool for the destination drive. Either locally, or over the network.

So that may be a viable option after all. ;)

 

As for your plan.... that may not work as you think it will. 

DrivePool doesn't have a definition of "original" and "duplicate". But files are "duplicated", and that's all that is checked for balancing.

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uh oh. maybe I don't quite understand the "file placement limiter" properly then....!!  :o

 

I have 3 HDDs for data: 2TB, 1TB, and 500GB and a 2TB disk for backup. So what I wanted to do was make sure all my data is on the 2TB disk, and the folders that are duplicated had duplicates on the 1TB and 500GB drives. THen I set up WHS to back up just the 2TB disk.

 

So I changed the settings on the 1TB and 500GB disks so they only contain duplicated files.

 

have I done it wrong....?!!?!

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Well, the File Placement limiter (renamed to the "Disk Usage Limiter" in the 2.X version) determines if duplicated and/or unduplicated information is placed on the drive. 

As I said, it doesn't differentiate between the original file and duplicate. That's not it's purpose.

 

 

The optional "Ordered File Placement" balancer may be more of what you want... but even that isn't exactly what you want. It fills up one disk at a time. But depending on how you have the pool duplicated.... You'll run into the same issue.

 

To be honest, the best method to back up the pool, is a file based method, not block based (like Server Backup). 

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