Server HDD image question

ngentile

Distinguished
Apr 2, 2011
42
0
18,530
I hope I am posting this in the correct thread.

I have a Dell poweredge 840. I am running windows server 2008 R2. Runs like a champ.
I am using the machine for mainly as a web server / local lan backup server. It has worked great but I am attempting to step up my backup strategy off of the server. I am running 2 - 1TB enterprise grade hard drives in a mirrored RAID 1 config. The server is never offline since it is serving pages for various sites I have designed. I also have several backups running at various times from the LAN computers. I was considering tape but thought it would be tedious and low capacity tapes aren't fun to play with. I was hoping to purchase some external esata drives or USB 3.0 drives and basically create an image of the RAID onto the external disks weekly for offsite backup. In case anyone was wondering I was planning on using DriveImage xml and create images. I have used it on several workstations but not a server. It uses VSS to copy open files in use. Does win server 2008 support VSS?

What other apps/suggestions do you guys have about backing up my server? I just like the idea of HDD because they are pretty cheap and fast. Thanks in advance.
 
Since you didn't give a budget, how about

Upgrade server to a raid-5 better redundancy
Invest in a small NAS with raid-5 to store your images/backups.

R2 supports VSS and DXML does work I have been told it does have some limitations, however I have also been told that the inbuilt backup tool tha come with R2 create VHD's that be manipulated down to the file level, for when a file gets corrupted and needs to be restore back to the live server.
 

ngentile

Distinguished
Apr 2, 2011
42
0
18,530
Thank you for your reply. I actually contacted the company that makes DXML with some specific questions and they never answered me. Anyway, I do have a budget sine the server itself has cost me alot to get setup. I really wanted to spend less than 500.00 on my backup for the server, and really closer to 400.00. I've looked at tape, which I can get pretty inexpensively, but the recovery time and capacity of the drives is what worries me. I think my RAID card only supports RAID 1, 5, 10.

Do you know specifically what the limitations of DXML are on server 2008? I'll have to check the VHD option built into R2 and how it works.

I agree RAID 5 would be better and provide greater capacity as well. I just fear the downtime that is involved in rebuilding a RAID 5 array. I have done many rebuilds on mirrored drives and on many different RAID card, on board and off. Its always been easy as pie. Granted I haven't worked with as many RAID 5 setups as RAID 1 setups.