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Backing up Windows Server 2008

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  • Windows Server 2008
  • Workstations
  • Business Computing
  • Servers
Last response: in Business Computing
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June 20, 2014 11:49:43 AM

We have two windows server 2008 machines and I wanted to create backups of them. All of the backups to date that I have done involve workstations and I use Acronis 2009 and 2014 to get the job done. I am very familiar with this product and would prefer to use it over built in backup applications in windows. Question is, will the standard version of Acronis work for Server? I noticed that Acronis puts out a Server addition, what is the difference?

I would appreciate any advice.

More about : backing windows server 2008

June 22, 2014 1:22:48 AM

The biggest difference of the Acronis server editions is that you can actually install them on a server OS :p  The desktop version will just fail and tell you it's not compatible.

If you want to stick with Acronis there are several different versions. Which one you require depends on what your server does.

Plain 2008 or is it 2008 R2? What roles does your server have... is it just a file server or is this a domain controller, active directory etc. Any SQL? Oracle? Exchange? etc.

If you can answer these, I can tell you which version is required.
June 22, 2014 4:35:09 AM

We use plain 2008. One server is a file server used for point of sales programs. The other server is our terminal server and it hosts remote desktop sessions. No mail ect...

EDIT: I suppose its something of a moot point, I just looked at the server edition an its $1000. that's pretty steep considering the desktop version is $50. I could see paying $200 for it but $1000 is unfortunately out of my budget. I just ordered hardware to upate one of our locations and couldn't justify another grand to the VPs.

Looks like I will be using the backup software with Server. I have never touched it before, is there anything out of the ordinary I should know or does it work similar to other backup programs?
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June 22, 2014 6:15:17 AM

Yeah server backup software is never cheap. For some of our smaller clients we use BackupAssist. The base licence is only £155 and is all you would require. Might be worth looking into.


The built-in Windows Server backup does the job but isn't great. Some of it's main drawbacks (for me anyway) are these.

- Can't recover to dissimilar hardware.

- Can't recover to VM

- Doesn't allow for multiple backup schedules.
You can backup as frequently as every 15 mins but it will be the same backup every time. I would usually have something like SQL backup every hour, critical data folders backed up every couple of hours, then a full system backup done overnight. You can't do this with Windows Server Backup.

- No automatic disk rotation. If you want it to alternate between disks you have to manually disconnect one and reconnect the other.

- Only supports destination disks with a 512 sector size or that support 512e. Many larger disks these days use 4k sectors.


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June 22, 2014 4:02:58 PM

Yes those drawbacks would be very frustrating. I will look into BackUpAssist. Is it capable of the key features that Windows backup is missing? Above all I would need multiple schedule and Backing up to disimilar hardware would be a real treat. I t would be a restore the backup to a new machine, enter in a new activation key and place it in a new store. as it stands right now setting up a server and configuring it is an all day event. but if we could do it once then just restore the backup all would be good.
June 23, 2014 12:06:39 PM

BackupAssist overcomes all of the things I listed apart from the 512 sector size limit. I'm not sure if any backup software gets around this in 2008. It's more of an OS issue as it doesn't happen in Server 2012.

The 30-day trial is actually unlimited - meaning you can do literally anything the full version would allow. I highly recommend installing it and having a play around. Take a few backups and try restoring them to another PC and see if things worlk like you want.
June 23, 2014 12:17:35 PM

Thank you for the information. I will download it and give it a try, this has been really helpful.

I am building two new servers tomorrow. I have fresh copies of server but if this works I can just back up the exsisiting server and restore to the new builds. I assume once I restore to the new machines windows will prompt me to enter the new product keys yes?
June 23, 2014 12:43:07 PM

Yes I had to re-enter the product key last time I done a restore.

Are the two new servers going to be on the same network? Not sure how that will work out. Obviously you will have to change the Hostname and IP address etc after restoring so they don't conflict. I don't think restoring creates a new SID either which could cause issues. This can be changed manually if needed though.
June 23, 2014 1:09:56 PM

There will not be any conflict, these servers will be at a different location on a different network. we have 6 stores and each store has the data server and the terminal server and then X number of workstations. The setup for each store is identical so if I clone the two servers at the location that we just finished, I can hopefully drop the clones into the new store with few issues. The last time we did this it was a 8 hour event with me and the system admin to get everything configured properly. I am hoping to eliminate the configuration time by cloning the machines that are already setup.
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