DP and Backup

JRosegg

Hi,

I have DP and, aside form the OS of course, _everything_ is
pooled and duplicated (to two drives(!)). I am now wondering whether it
should be OK to backup just one of the two drives. I think I understand
that once the pool would consist of three drives that that would not
work anymore and the backup would include two instances of everything.

Many thanks.

dbailey75

Depending on your backup program, I'm not using the built in windows backup for this, but you would only need to back up the shares themselves, no need to worry where the data is actually stored on your server.  You could also use a file sync program to backup your shares to an external drive.

Shane

If your preferred backup software takes an image of a drive, then yes, since you've set everything duplicated you could back up the pool simply by imaging one of the two drives in the pool, and yes, once the pool has three or more drives that would no longer work.

Otherwise, if your preferred backup software works at the file and folder level, then it's as dbailey75 says - backup from the pool, not the physical drives.

JRosegg

I use the standard WHS 2011 backup software. I don't actually know if that is imaging or at file level, I think the latter but with versioning and other stuff that does allow to rebuild drives instead of files only?

Anyroad, many thanks for this. Another reason to stick with two drives then.

Shane

Something to note is that the standard WHS 2011 backup software has a 2TB limit. If your data to backup ever exceeds this limit, you will need to switch to something else.

JRosegg

Uh oh, I thought the 2TB limit pertained to _drives_, not total volume. Ah well, with WHS discontinued I'll have to go the SBS route anyway someday I think.