System Backup, System Folders, VSS and Pools

[Sanders]

Hi

I'm in the process of setting up a new home server to replace an aging WHSv1. The new server is running WSE2012R2. I intended to just have a system drive, which is an SSD, another drive dedicated to just system backups and the rest (up to 9 more) would be 4- or 6-TB pool drives. I don't see any need for file duplication in the pool for anything. The files are mainly static media files and I do weekly sync operations using offline HDDs to pick up any additions.

I'm running into an issue that may have more to do with not being familiar with WSE but I think preople here will know. I have read in the forums about some DrivePool and VSS/System Backup issues but it's still not clear to me how to handle this or what "best practice" is.

So my WSE wants me to move default System Folders off Drive C:. Not a bad idea since the client backups will be too big for an SSD anyway. I don't think I have much use for most of these default system folders to begin with except the Client Backups. I want to locate them in the pool and then use System Backup to backup those that I care about (like maybe also the "User" system folder hierarchy) but I'm runing into issues with System Backup and VSS configuration when I do this. When I relocate a system folder, Server Backup wants me to add those in the new location to the backup plan, but to do this it needs VSS running on the entire pool volume. That seems like a bad idea to me. I tried switching off VSS for the pool drive but then system backups fail.

So what is the strategy here that allows System Backup to take care of automatically backing up C:, plus the client backups, and maybe the User system folders nightly? Doesn't enabling VSS on a virtual drive cause trouble? I definitely don't want it making snapshots of all the media files that might come/go as well and wasting space on those. I read the forum threads here about adding folders directly from the drives in the pool to the backup but since the plan is to have a total of 8 pool drives that means I have to manage all of those individual subfolders on every drive since those system folders will be ditributed among all the pool drives.

I guess I can relocate system folders to a nonpool drive and then back that up with System Backup with VSS enabled on that one drive, but I lose a bunch of pool space by doing that. It's highly unlikely I would need 4-TB just to handle client backups.

What to do here? Thanks.
 

 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

First,

 

VSS doesn't work on the Pool, at all. There is absolutely no documentation released by Microsoft on how to implement VSS (shadow copies) on the file system level. So to implement it, we'd have to reverse engineer it and then extensively test it. Unfortunately, we are a very small company, so we don't really have the resources to dedicate to this, right now.

 

That means that you cannot use Server Backup to backup the pool. At least not directly. 

You could use the file placement rules to limit which drives get the client backup database, and the user folders, and back up just those folders on the drives. (x:\PoolPart.xxxxx\ServerFolder\etc).

 

Though, I would recommend enabling duplication for the Client Backup Database folder, because if you lose even one file, it can cause you to lose the entire database, or at least large chunks of it. 

 

Additionally, you could use a utility to copy the files to another drive. You mention that you do a weekly sync, what are you using to do so?

[Sanders]

Christopher,

 

Thank you very much for your answer.

 

VSS doesn't work on the Pool, at all.

It got turned on for the pool by WSE whenever I relocated a System Folder using the Dashboard utilities. It basically forces you to go through and update Server Backup configuration each time a folder moves. I turned VSS back off which is what led to the troubles with the System Backup failing and then I eventually removed the entireset of system folders on the pool drive and the pool drive itself from System Backup. I assume that didn't hurt anything or damage the pool right?

 

That means that you cannot use Server Backup to backup the pool. At least not directly.

I assume you mean, "backup any folder in the pool"? I have no desire to backup the entire pool drive but from VSS' perspective it seems to be all-or-nothing.

 

 

You could use the file placement rules to limit which drives get the client backup database, and the user folders, and back up just those folders on the drives. (x:\PoolPart.xxxxx\ServerFolder\etc).

 

Though, I would recommend enabling duplication for the Client Backup Database folder, because if you lose even one file, it can cause you to lose the entire database, or at least large chunks of it.

I think the latter solution would be best in this case and then just keep all the System Folders out of the System Backup completely. But I'm a little unclear about this and what effect it has on a System Restore. Really all I care about is being able to restore my server's SSD from bare metal in the event of a catastrophic failure of the SSD or the need to do a complete rebuild for some reason. What's the effect of relocating System Folders and then not backing some of them up? I have no use for "Company", for example, but I'll be damned if I can see a way to delete it. What I don't want to have happen is that a system restore fails because some unused "System Folder" isn't available after a restore because it's not in the backup set.

 

As I said, I'm new to WSE so I'm not sure what some of these System Folders are for. All I really care about are the client backups of the default ones that got added at install. My WHSv1 uses about 200 GB with it's current strategy to back up 7 client PCs. Is this going to be roughly the same space requirement? I can afford to duplicate 200GB in the pool if that's the case.

 

Additionally, you could use a utility to copy the files to another drive. You mention that you do a weekly sync, what are you using to do so?

This one, I had considered. I do sync operations on my WHS pool with robocopy and some self-authored batch files. I back up the WHSv1 client backups ~monthly to a network share on another computer using the old "WHS BDBB" add-in. Something similar would probably work for me I just wasn't sure how/whether it could be restored as there's no mechanism from within WSE to restore a client backup database. If a WSE loses it's client backups off the pool (or some critcal db file is damaged), can one simply manually copy an older version from an offline HDD back into the pool in the correct system folder and then WSE just picks up again with a working client backup database from that point? I realize that some days worth of client backups might be lost in that case but that's hardly going to matter for my installation.

 

Again, I appreciate the help.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

VSS is all or nothing. It takes a snapshot of the disk, and then picks and chooses files from the snapshot (or uses all of the). That's how it works. The snapshot allows it to backup files that are in use, without worrying about constantly changing content.

So since the Pool itself doesn't support VSS, you cannot backup any folder on the pool. Not directly.

 

 

 

 

As for the bare metal restore, you only really need to be able to backup the C:\ drive. If you're doing that, then you can restore the system in the case of the system drive failing, a bad update, or breaking stuff by tinkering. 

You don't need to back up the Server Folders, and it's not required for the "system state"/"bare metal recovery" option. 

 

As for the Server Folders, these are the shares and the backup database. Some of them aren't necessary, depending on your usage, but I would still recommend moving them all over to the pool (or at least off of the system disk). 

 

As for the backups, it uses a similar but updated engine from the WHSv1 backup. It definitely does the data deduplication, and the restore in much the same way. So it should use roughly the same space. Though the size it uses depends on your systems, and the retention policy for the backups.

 

And as for restoring the backups, yeah, you'd simply overwrite the files and restart service.

Actually, this is what the WHS BDBB add-in did, but just "behind the scenes". I would know, as I was one of the guys that help discover how that stuff worked. Including how to restore the backup database to a new system.

However, what you want to do specifically is stop the Client Backup services, copy the files to the destination or restore over them, and then start up the service. Once the service starts back up, it "reindexes" the backups and uses that information. 

You can do all of this with a batch script, in fact. 

 

I've done this a couple of times, during upgrading/reinstallation, actually. And it works very well.

[AkAdam44]

I'm having pretty much the same issue. I have an SSD as my OS drive (C:) and two 2TB HD's (W: and X:) pooled together to create a new disk (E:) for the server folders. When I try to set up Windows Server Backup, I am able to uncheck the pooled disk (E:) so it's not included in the backup...however, as long as I have Bare Metal Restore checked off, Server Backup insists that one of my 2TB drives (W:) must be included in the backup. Because of this, my backup takes up about 900GB instead of about 60GB. I want to be able to restore my OS drive in case it fails, but I don't want to have to back up the EVERYTHING on my server. Is this possible??

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Usually that happens because you have one or more system roles installed to the drive.  

 

Do you have ANYTHING configured to use that drive? WDS (Client Restore Services), WSUS, HyperV, anything?

[AkAdam44]

I'm running Server 2012 R2 with the Essentials and Hyper V Role installed.  I have one Windows 7 VM created.  Both the virtual machine and the virtual hard drive I have installed in folders at the root of my OS drive (C:) so I don't think that is accessing one of my pooled hard drives at all.  On my server itself, I've never touched either of the pooled disks individually...I just have all my server shared folders (Music, Pics, Video) on thel pooled disk.  When I do open up the drives individually, all I see is the hidden "PoolPart" folder.

 

However, when I go into the Server Backup Wizard and I check off Bare Metal Restore and I am forced to backup one of these two drives...it looks like my (W:) drive has more folders in it than my (X:) drive.  Check the picture I included to see what I mean.  Could this be why it's forcing me to include this drive in the Bare Metal Restore???

 

 

 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

It looks like one of the drives somehow ended up as the boot partition. That is VERY odd.

 

Notice the "boot" folder, and the "bootmgr" and "bootnxt" files? These are boot files.  

 

Unfortunately, there isn't a simple solution here. I would recommend reinstalling the OS, after disconnecting the pooled drives. This will fix the issue....

[AkAdam44]

Do you think I could just remove the drive from my drivepool, reformat it, and add it back without messing up my Server 2012 R2 installation or pooled data?

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Yes and no.

 

It's possible, but if you format it, it will most likely render the system unbootable. And I wouldn't want to risk that.

 

However, if you can create a small partition on the system drive, move the boot files over, and mark it as active, it may be able to boot from the partition.  But that's a "maybe".

That is why I would recommended reinstalling.

[AkAdam44]

I think I have figured out what my problem is.  I am running Server 2012 R2 on an HP n54l.  I have my OS drive installed in the optical drive bay which connects to the optical drive SATA port on the motherboard.  I also had one of my 2TB hard drives installed in the first drive bay when I installed Server 2012 R2.  Since the 2TB drive was installed on the first SATA port "Disk 0" in the PC, from what I've read, Windows will always place all operating system boot files on this drive even if you install the OS on a drive on a different SATA Port.  So, if I had removed that 2TB drive before installing my OS I wouldn't have had this problem.  Fortunatly, it looks like I may be able to fix this issue without reinstalling.  I found the following tutorial on www.sevenforums.com which I hope will also work on Server 2012 R2.

 

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html

 

In a nut shell, it looks like I just need to mark my OS drive "C:" as active, then remove all other hard drives on the server.  Then boot into my Server 2012 R2 installation disc and choose the "StartUp Repair" option in the System Recovery Options menu.  The tutorial says I may need to do the StartUp Repair up to 3 times to get all the necessary boot files to be written over to my OS drive.  Once I have Server running correctly off of just my C: drive, then I should be able to reformat my 2TB drive, to get rid of the unneccessary boot files stored on it, and add it back to my mirrored StableBit Pool.  Once this is all complete, I am hoping that Windows Server Backup will no longer require me to include this 2TB hard drive in my Bare Metal Restore backup!

 

I really hope this works...LoL

[Christopher (Drashna)]

That sounds like it is definitely the issue.

 

And that solution sounds like it should work. If it doesn't.... well prepare for reinstalling the OS anyways. Just in case.