Will clients backup properly if client computer backup folder is in Pool?

GWTony · April 2012

I want to move the 'client backup folder' into the pool to increase my backup storage space to accommodate my computers.

Will this work for WHS 2011 and the clients?

Will this increase my backup capacity for the client backups?

saitoh183 · April 2012

Most systems work fine, but some get hicks...Just move it to the pool and try it out

Paaland · April 2012

Just think before you do this. The client backup database is quite vulnerable. If the database gets corrupt you could loose one or all of the backups for one or all of your client machines. The client backups are for me quite important. I've got 6 drives in my system. If I add the folder to the pool the contents might get spread across all six drives. This actually increases the likelihood the something happening by a factor of six (it's six times more probable that one of the drives in the pool will fail, than any single one failing alone).

I'm not sure if you can have duplication on the client backup folder, or if you even have enough space to do so. For this reason I keep the client backups outside of the pool and I back it up to another server I have as well. I've got backups of previous OS installations (XP, Vista etc) as well as machines I do not longer have physically. So I cannot afford the client backups to go bad.

Shane · April 2012

Paaland's right (and thanks Paaland, you've nailed the best reason not to pool the client database backup - insert my best facepalm pose here for not realising it sooner).

This is an edge case where you don't want to use the pool: when you have a large number of large files that you can't afford to lose and every one of them is a potential point of failure for the whole. (okay, they might not ALL be points of failure, but I certainly wouldn't want to find out the hard way which are and which aren't).

Duplication can mitigate this, but as Paaland points out, the more drives you have the worse this edge case potentially gets; if you could confine the database folder to one or two specific drives in the pool (which were then duplicated to one or two other specific drives), that would work, but we currently can't do that.

GWTony · April 2012

My configuration is as follows:

60gig SSD system, holds C: only

2tb

\ drive holds the client computer backup folder

2 - 3tb, and 1 - 2tb drive in the pool.

2 - 2tb drives both assigned to WHS 2011 backup drives (not in pool)

I'm running into a problem where the total of the client backups exceed 2tb. Each of the clients use less than 2tb (if I only backup the system disk) however the total of each of the 5 clients exceed the 2tb size.

The other problem I ran into was the server backing up itself, it continues to fail due to only using one of the 2tb backup drives.

This may call for the use of 3rd party software like Acronis. (I use this for the other partitions)

I want to get the most out of WHS 2011 as possible, and take full advantage of it's automatic backup features.

I know this question may be beyond this forum, but you guys seem to be very knowledgeable in this field.

How do I backup multiple clients if the total exceeds the size of the Client Computer Backup folder?

Shane · April 2012

Sadly, MS had some great ideas but blew the delivery when they built WHS 2011's backup wizard.

The gory details: http://gcoupe.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/i-dont-believe-it-2/

Basically, if your backups are over 2TB, use something else.

GWTony · April 2012

Thanks all, and Shane, I have read that before creating my new server, and the blog almost talked me out of if. I actually only used WHS1 as a file backup anyway... once I tried to restore a fill recovery of a laptop, and it would not work, so the only thing I have ever trusted for the FULL system recovery has been disk images using various software with complete success. Basically nothing much is going to change for me.

By the way, I still partition my system drives at 1tb or less to keep the drive image smaller.

It's still good to ask others (like you guys) as you never know what type of tricks you may find.

>:D<

edit: I'm still glad that I bought DrivePool, it is very useful, and helpful for how I use the server.

dvdluvver · April 2012

I just moved my client backup folder into the pool, and haven't gotten a successful backup since. Hoping I can get it working, but thought I would share...

R

markjjordan · April 2012

I put my"client computer backups" share into the pool at the begining of this past week. I am now regretting it. All was fine until I rebooted my WHS 2011 server on Saturday after doing a windows update. I've not had a successful client backup since. Fortunately, I backed up the files from that folder to a removable drive before putting in to the pool, so I can restore those.

Just sharing my experience, too. I'm thinking that putting the client backups into the pool might not be a good idea, and the safer bet is to keep them on a non-pooled drive.

dvdluvver · April 2012

OK, it may be that just the nature of client backup (which in Alex's defense has been very finicky and quirky since WHS2011's release all by itself w/o DP) that it may be best to not have it pooled.

Given that, I've got about 5 clients that I want to keep backed up (OS drives only). Is there a drive size that would be ideal? The nice thing about pooling the Client Backups is that it frees the amount of backups possible beyond the size of a single drive.

R

jdpg2 · April 2012

My client backups (6 clients) are in the pool and work perfectly. I have even done a restore from a backup in the pool and that worked fine as well. The difference is i moved my client backup folder when it was empty into the pool and then started backups. I am wondering if that's why its working.

GWTony · April 2012

I have a virtual server with some virtual computers running and I have moved the folder and performed backups of the one client with success. I also believe the folder was empty before being moved into the pool, as far as restoring, I'm not exactly sure how to test that in a virtual environment. So far 2 successful backups. As for my real server and clients..... I'm using the regular folder as-is for file backup only, and Acronis for partition backups on another non-pooled drive. This setup may change as space runs out. Thanks for the input everyone, I really appreciate it.

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Will clients backup properly if client computer backup folder is in Pool?

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