Hi,

- Running EX485 and plan is to use 2 x 750 drives to alternate offsite BDBB backups on.
- Added each drive as a "Server backup hard drive" and the BDBB backup worked great
- Attempting to remove the drive and I am asked "what do you want to do with this external hard drive?"
-- Only offered the option "Stop using it for server backups"
-- It seems the better option is "Temporarily remove it from my home server" , but that option is not selectable.

So.... Is "Stop using it for server backups" fine, choose that and pull the drive, or, should I be doing something different to allow the option of "Temporarily remove it from my home server"

Thx
ZY

I think the option to temporarily remove the drive is available for externally attached drives. One of my friends uses an external drive to back his up and swaps between 2 drives that way.

I have a 4th drive in mine that i use for BDBB that is internal. I just did the following:

1. Went into the WHS console and removed the drive using the Stop option.
2. Removed the drive from the server.
3. Replaced the drive back into the server
4. Added the drive to the backup pool, but DID NOT FORMAT the drive

So far it still shows the files i had on it before removing it. I've only been using BDBB for 2 days now so i really don't have much on it....

While it does look like it works, it may not be the most recommended way. But it does seem to work. Personally if you plan on swapping drives, I'd get an external cage that you can swap drives in. I'm too cheap for that right now.

Why do you have to add the drive at all? You can insert the drive and operate it as a lettered drive, e: f: etc. BDBB will see the drive just fine and you can just hot swap the drive as needed without having to stop the drive or add it back in when needed. That's the way I use BDBB and a drive for off-site storage. I've never really understood the need to setting up a drive for Backup with in the server unless it's for the Shares backup functionality. Not something I need to use. My two cents.

I think some people use the same drive for both the WHS Shared Folder backup feature as well as BDBB backups.

_________________
Alex Kuretz
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Good point. Next time i'll read the manual a bit closer. Just noticed the Features section of the text file that comes down with the addin says pretty much any drive. I had added my drive to the backup pool to try some backups of the data pool, and just used it for BDBB as well.

I do that... And when I need to remove it (to rotate with another drive from off-site), I just remove it!

_________________
....JBick

EX475, 2 GB, LE-1640
PC1: Vista-->W7 Ultimate/32, (D-Drive RAID-5 Array)
PC2: Lenovo Laptop, Win XP Home SP3
2xLinksys WRT54G v1.1 and 2xNetGear GS105 Gbit switch

How does using the added disk as a WHS Backup disk differ than using BDBB and a drive letter? Obviously being able to use the Shares Backup functionality is different but I can copy shares to the drive letter in a similar fashion. Am I missing something?

The difference is really just the Shares Backup.

_________________
....JBick

EX475, 2 GB, LE-1640
PC1: Vista-->W7 Ultimate/32, (D-Drive RAID-5 Array)
PC2: Lenovo Laptop, Win XP Home SP3
2xLinksys WRT54G v1.1 and 2xNetGear GS105 Gbit switch

When the shares are backed up is it just a copy or are they compressed some how and require WHS to restore? Can you use the drive, connect it to a client and pull the share data direct? Thanks.

Shared Folders are backed up in the same manner that client backups are done to the WHS/MSS. It is a database and there is compression. The resulting backup can NOT be read by NTFS directly so you can not "connect it to a client and pull the share data direct". You can, however, retrieve archived versions of the shares on retrieval.

If you want the ability to do that take a look at an automated approach to MSS/WHS backups at http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3261. As written that will back up both Shared Folders AND the backup database automatically. The shared folders ARE readable as NTFS files. The script can be tailored to meet your needs.

_________________
....JBick

EX475, 2 GB, LE-1640
PC1: Vista-->W7 Ultimate/32, (D-Drive RAID-5 Array)
PC2: Lenovo Laptop, Win XP Home SP3
2xLinksys WRT54G v1.1 and 2xNetGear GS105 Gbit switch

I got a kick out of reading that discussion a while back. Quite the lively discussion for a while. It does surprise me that there isn't functionality built in to WHS - like the regular Home PC Backup mechanism - to do automated server backups. It seems to be quite the discussion topic.