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PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 11:49 pm 
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1TB storage
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I've had my EX495 for a number of years now (since 2009 I think!) and although it has been a faithful and reliable machine, it has presented me with issues to resolve over the years. I have come back here many times over the years. I am still running WHS v1

It is weird to come here now and see very little activity. Makes me wonder if I am some relic, holding on to old technology, reluctant to "modernize"! Ha! This as it relates to what was once cutting edge technology: a home server!

I have an issue that has arisen that some may also be looking at and although I THINK I have found a solution, I wanted to discuss with you all.

I've added storage to my machine so today I have all 4 bays filled. I have 3 1.5TB WD black drives (1 of which is the SYS drive), and one 2TB WD red drive (most recently added).

My issue is: how to backup my server now that it has more than 2TB of data.

Until recently, I tried to use a 3TB WD Red drive for server backup, but as many users have experienced, I did not have consistent success with it. I tried may variations of formatting and even installed the GPT Loader from Paragon software, but nothing really worked. Every time the OS was instructed to reach beyond 2TB, it would hang. I could hear the drives thrashing about, but nothing I did would break whatever loop the machine was in...

So, I gave up on the big disk and I've been looking for other strategies for server backup.

I had purchased a SANSDigital TR4M+BNC some time ago but had never really used it. So I pulled it out of the closet and connected it. I powered it up and gave the server time to see it and then inserted a 1.5TB disk and waited, then another 1.5TB. Although I experimented with different approaches, I finally configured each disk as dynamic, and created a spanned volume across the two disks. Although I was happy that this worked, I was concerned that the server would not recognize the drives and would not retain the spanned volume if I removed them from the enclosure for off site storage.

Before using the drives for (manual) server backup, I tested the removal scenario. I went into device manager and disabled each of the two disks that contain the spanned volume, then shut down the external enclosure. Naturally, the server reflected the absence of the drives with a couple minor messages in the event logs related to lost data that could not be written, and the Disk manager no longer showed the presence of the disks.

I then turned the enclosure back on with the drives inserted into the backplane, and watched the server. To my surprise, in Device Manager, the drives were recognized but were Disabled. The disks did not show up in Drive Management (I think). I enabled them via Disk Management and then in Disk Management, I right clicked one of the two disks, and selected the "Reactivate Disk" option.

I was thrilled to see the spanned volume appear again!

I did all this today and followed this up with a manual copy of all shared folders to my spanned volume. I copied more data than would fit on one of the drives alone and could see the lights on the enclosure flashing, eventually with disk 1 light not flashing so much and disk 2 picking up where 1 was full.

I then ran BDBB and am half way through a client database backup so I am hoping it completes without issue.

Note that I have not added the drives to the server storage pool via the Home Server Console. I am managing all file copies manually. In the event of a server crash, I would have to perform a new install and then copy back all my shares and client database manually. At least I think that is what I would have to do..

In the future, I am planning to run an incremental copy using FreeFileSync to copy new or changed files and folders so the backups should be much faster.



What strategy do you guys use to back up your server? Is my approach a good one or would you suggest a different one?



Incidentally, I used FastCopy to copy all my data to the backup volume. It worked well, and I think it was moving fast, but I have never copied so much data before so I don't have much to compare its performance against. I did find that the file sync tool was reporting days to complete the file transfer whereas the copy utility only took about 2 hours or so. I copied 1.7TB The nice thing was that there was no latency on the server's response via the RDP session I had with the GUI. The utility runs independent of the OS for the copy tasks, which was great.


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 8:05 am 
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Thx for the question, I believe there are a lot of us out their that are in the same boat.

I sometimes feel the same way, but this is what I have done, been doing and what my future plans are.
Right now I am running a x-510 (same hardware as the ex-490). Running duplication on all folders.
I am backing up 9 clients, those clients have been told to keep as much data as possible on the server to keep the backups fast and small. They all have small ssd except for 1 spinner.

I have 3 (2tb) reds in it now with 1 tb free.
I make sure I don't keep junk data or duplicate files on it for starters. My dvd rips are mpeg 1.5gig +/- in size and I did that to keep them small.
I have a second 510 that I use synctoy to copy all the shares to monthly, it has all 2tb drives as well. This is my local copy.

Then I have 2 tb drives that I use as non-pooled drives and backup the shares. Right now everything fits on the 2 tb, but it is getting close. I have two of these drives I rotate out off site.
I tried the non-pooled 4 tb drives and had the same results as you, no joy!
This is my future plans:
When you insert a non-pooled drive it has a drop down list of what to backup, I plan on breaking out the data to 2 non-pooled drives.
IE non-pooled drive 1 will have movies/music/photos and the 2nd drive will have everything else, this gives me 4 tb of non-pooled backup space and all I have to do is label what is on each drive.
I also have a Lian LI 5 bay usb external. At some point I will have 4 2tb drives in the server and use the external for the non-pooled drive work.

Lastly, if all else fails I have two other options:
1) I have two copies of whs 2011 which I could use and that would let me use bigger drives.
2) I built a DIY win2012E server and put the 2 4tb drives I tried to use as non-pooled into it with room for two more and am using stablebit drive pool.

I am not going to upgrade my clients to win 10, I am going to wait and see, I have all win7 and 1 vista clients so we will see what Microsoft does next.

Hope this has helped, just splitting the non-pooled drives server backup should keep you going for awhile without playing in disk manager to much.

Some of us are still here and will not give the servers up till we have to :-)

P.S. My Lian Li external does not like to sleep, as I sleep my server at night I can only use the external for non-pooled backups, which I am ok with, but it would be better to have an external drive holder that would hold pooled drives and sleep as well. I can work around it but FYI for you. If you sleep your system.

Goodluck There is no right or wrong way to do it as long as it is working for you and you have backups, it's all good.
Some are going cloud backups, I am a anti-cloud person so I have to buy more drives and I am ok with that :-)

P.s.s Hopefully you have the free Smart addin to keep an eye on the drives, it's a must have.

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[X510 /2 in box]
[X710 LIAN LI DIY W2016E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
:twisted: Fear the Cloud :twisted:


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 03, 2016 3:25 pm 
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If you want to backup the server with the 3 tb red.
Just format it on your pc so you get the full 3tb.
Then add it as a non pooled drive without formatting..
It will appear as a server drive and you can configure it to backup by folder from the server.
Using the console.
Just bear in mind it will not backup pc client backups unless you use the bdbb addin and use it to make additional backups to another folder.
In fact the console will allow you to use multiple 3tb drives at the same time and all show on one server drive and you can pick and choose what folder to backup to what backup drive.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 03, 2016 8:09 pm 
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I'm looking at one of these: it will sleep so I could have 8 2tb pooled drives.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817576009&cm_re=mediasonic-_-17-576-009-_-Product

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[X510 /2 in box]
[X710 LIAN LI DIY W2016E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
:twisted: Fear the Cloud :twisted:


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 3:24 pm 
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2.0TB storage
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I'm still here...ex490 owner :-)

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PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2016 8:52 am 
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I try to check in to see if I can help. WHS V1 is still working great for me and I'm guessing many others.
Sometimes I think what would have happened if Microsoft and HP built WHS on Win 2008 Server and we could use larger drives in each bay.
Oh man, we would still be having a lot of activity then and for years to come.
I get whs 2011 was a try, but just not the same.
This is the only time I wish I was a coder and could do just that. Could you imagine how well it would sell.
WHS V1.1 worked and looked just like whs v1 but was built on 2008...... Oh well, I will keep running them till they won't go no more lolololool
This site has always been the best Thanks to Alex and many great people. :mss: :sanjuan:

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[X510 CPU/RAM/All 2 TB Red's] [X510 CPU/Sync'ed Backup/All 2 TB Hitachi's]
[X510 /2 in box]
[X710 LIAN LI DIY W2016E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
:twisted: Fear the Cloud :twisted:


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 10:01 pm 
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2.0TB storage
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Gardian wrote:
I try to check in to see if I can help. WHS V1 is still working great for me and I'm guessing many others.
Sometimes I think what would have happened if Microsoft and HP built WHS on Win 2008 Server and we could use larger drives in each bay.
Oh man, we would still be having a lot of activity then and for years to come.
I get whs 2011 was a try, but just not the same.
This is the only time I wish I was a coder and could do just that. Could you imagine how well it would sell.
WHS V1.1 worked and looked just like whs v1 but was built on 2008...... Oh well, I will keep running them till they won't go no more lolololool
This site has always been the best Thanks to Alex and many great people. :mss: :sanjuan:



Gardian...WHS V1.1?

Was that the Vail OS?

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 8:36 pm 
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No.
Whs v1.1 would be my "hypothetical" OS built on win 2008 server and looked and worked just like whs v1.
It just never happened.

Microsoft went cloud, which I refuse to use.

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[X510 CPU/RAM/All 2 TB Red's] [X510 CPU/Sync'ed Backup/All 2 TB Hitachi's]
[X510 /2 in box]
[X710 LIAN LI DIY W2016E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
:twisted: Fear the Cloud :twisted:


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PostPosted: Sun Jul 03, 2016 7:55 am 
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1TB storage
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Still using our EX-485 to backup our 3 Windows 10 PC's and some light media sharing with our TiVo's. I bought a used one for my son and his girlfriend so their PC's are backed up as well. He's at college and I wanted to give him something that handled backup without a lot of attention and he could use it for duplicated file storage.

Scott


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PostPosted: Sun Jul 03, 2016 8:56 am 
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My (2) 510's are still chugging along. I am still very pleased with how they work. I am about ready to fill that last bay, so will keep buying 2tb reds when on sale.
I have two extra 510's in the boxes for spares and/or I have a daughter that will be moving on to collage maybe next year, so will most likely send one with her.

WHS v1 was still one of the best ideas MS had, to bad they gave up on it.
My win 2012E server is still collecting dust, I fire it up every few months to check for updates, but still not looking forward to using it. lololoolol

Goodluck and enjoy!

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[X510 CPU/RAM/All 2 TB Red's] [X510 CPU/Sync'ed Backup/All 2 TB Hitachi's]
[X510 /2 in box]
[X710 LIAN LI DIY W2016E] Stablebit Drivepool [EX-503 LIAN LI 5-bay USB3 External]
:twisted: Fear the Cloud :twisted:


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