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PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:05 pm 
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I used the BDBB add-in to enable duplication of the backup database. Mainly because I also have backup's laying around of machines not longer in service and of various OS configurations.

A couple of questions:
1. After enabling backup database duplication it's "system" and not "duplications" in the usage graph that has grown. System was at 2% before, but it's not at 17% and 290 GB. Is this normal?

2. If (or when) my system drive eventually failes. How do I restore the backup database from the duplicatet location? I assume I first perform a clean WHS OS install, then copy the BD from somewhere to somewhere else? I tried seaching but failed to find a guide.

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:46 pm 
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The easiest & best way to restore the backup database after a system restore is to use a BDBB backup rather than duplication. Duplication just duplicates the backup database just like duplicating the shares, which may protect you in case of a drive failure if the failed drive contains your backup database. You can't "restore" the backup database using duplication.


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:53 pm 
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cavediver wrote:
The easiest & best way to restore the backup database after a system restore is to use a BDBB backup rather than duplication. Duplication just duplicates the backup database just like duplicating the shares, which may protect you in case of a drive failure if the failed drive contains your backup database. You can't "restore" the backup database using duplication.


Unfortunately I don't have any big enough drives that are not part of the storage pool to store the backup database to. Also using duplication I don't need to manually backup the database every now and again.

When restoring the OS after a system drive failure I assume I'll find the duplicated backup db somewhere so I can manually restore it by copying it to where it's supposed to be.

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 2:02 pm 
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How big is your backup database? If it's bigger than 2TB, you can attach a Sans Digital 4 bay sata external box or a 4 or 8 bay USB external box and set up the external box on raid 0 or 5 to achieve a volume bigger than 2TB for your BDBB backups.


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 3:49 pm 
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cavediver wrote:
How big is your backup database? If it's bigger than 2TB, you can attach a Sans Digital 4 bay sata external box or a 4 or 8 bay USB external box and set up the external box on raid 0 or 5 to achieve a volume bigger than 2TB for your BDBB backups.


It's not nearly that big. It's just a few hundred gigs. The best solution would just be to buy a new HDD and insert it into the server, and add it as a backup drive. But I don't want to spend any more money at the moment.

If it's that difficult to recover the backup db from the duplication, why is that option even available in the app?

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 4:27 pm 
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paaland wrote:
why is that option even available in the app?


I don't know. That's a question for Yakuza. I can report though, from experience in testing and real world drive failures, that restoring the backup database from a BDBB backup is flawless.


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 5:29 pm 
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You won't need to restore the database after a system drive failure because it's guaranteed to exist on more than one disk. During the Recovery process WHS will rebuild the tombstones which should allow the backup database to be in a good working state.

The reason I don't like to recommend the use of duplication for the WHS Backup DB is because if your backup DB becomes corrupt then you're now duplicating a corrupt DB, whereas a BDBB backup is a known working backup.

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paaland
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 12:37 am 
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yakuza wrote:
You won't need to restore the database after a system drive failure because it's guaranteed to exist on more than one disk. During the Recovery process WHS will rebuild the tombstones which should allow the backup database to be in a good working state.

The reason I don't like to recommend the use of duplication for the WHS Backup DB is because if your backup DB becomes corrupt then you're now duplicating a corrupt DB, whereas a BDBB backup is a known working backup.


Great explanaition. I did not even know the backup DB could become corrupt. Is that something that happens often? As stated I have certain valuable backup images of computers that are no longer existing that I would rather not loose :)

Perhaps adding yet another disk is the only viable choice after all.

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 9:45 am 
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In your case I think a BDBB backup to contain at least the valuable backup images would be the best idea. Note that if you have free space in Server Storage BDBB can make a backup there, as a temporary measure until you purchase a new drive. With 1TB drives under $100 I think you should probably purchase a new drive.

I wouldn't say the Backup DB gets corrupted often, it mostly commonly occurs if you lose a disk (even a non-system disk) or something else goes wrong. I've had my primary server running fine for 2 years now with no corruptions.

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 7:46 pm 
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paaland wrote:
1. After enabling backup database duplication it's "system" and not "duplications" in the usage graph that has grown. System was at 2% before, but it's not at 17% and 290 GB. Is this normal?

(I don'r believe this was answered above...)

Yes, that is normal.

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 7:02 pm 
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Hi, I tried using this addin and it does not appear to have worked for me. Have I done something wrong? Here is what happened, I decided to replace my system drive with a green WD drive, so I proceeded to create a backup of my backup database on an external USB HDD which seemed to go fine with the size matching that of my actual backups. I had another drive and had duplication turned on for my required folders. I then powered down, inserted my new drive and did a server restore. After the reinstallation I saw that my backups were not available even though the old computer names were listed and I thought this was where my backup would come in so I proceeded to restore my backup. However after finishing the restore and restarting I found my backup service wouldnt run and the health message said there was a problem with backups and to run a repair, which I did only to have most of the backups deleted. So I wonder, what did I do wrong and any advise for retrieving my backups from the external drive. Thanks.


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 12:26 am 
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Most likely you haven't installed all the WHS updates. This means your BDBB backup has a different version than the current running version of WHS, so the Repair deletes the backups. Download ALL the WHS updates via the Server Console and then try your restore again.

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 1:19 pm 
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Thanks, i will try that though I did update the server after doing the reinstall, maybe there were a few updates left.


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PostPosted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 8:30 pm 
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Two PLUS weeks ago I changed my BDBB settings to remove the checkmark from "Enable Duplication for WHS Backups" which has actually been (intentionally) checked from the time I initially installed BDBB. It was time to recover the disk space.

I knew from mentions in other threads that this may take a day or two to actually recover the space and I had, therefore, planned ahead accordingly! I do not find any instances of folks complaining their space was not eventually recovered, but it has been two+ WEEKS, including two Sunday morning clean-ups, and the space has yet to be recovered. Seems a bit excessive.

Suggestions?

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 11:43 pm 
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You can try toggling it on and off again. Worst case scenario is to take a backup, delete the backup DB, make sure duplication is off, and then restore the DB.

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