WHS backup question

[othy]

I just switched from a standalone Sage PC to a server running WHS and and HD-100 driving the television.

I've had WHS installed and running for a few weeks without Sage (while I waited for the HD extenders to restock) so I've learned the basics of the WHS backup system. However, I don't understand what I should do to backup my wiz.bin and properties files.

On my XP setup, I used software to automatically backup my sagetv directory each night and kept a week's worth at a time. Do I need to run a similar setup in WHS, or does it maintain a backup of the c: partition in the storage pool?

Anybody care to chime in with your backup solutions?

Tim

[rsteele]

Originally Posted by othy

Do I need to run a similar setup in WHS, or does it maintain a backup of the c: partition in the storage pool?
Tim

WHS does not keep the C: drive in the storage pool, so if you lose the boot drive you lose the C: drive.

I haven't gotten around to trying it yet, but my standard automated backup tool is SyncBack (from http://www.2brightsparks.com/). It's especially nice because it will correctly back up files that are in use. I believe that's a feature of the purchased version, but it's not that expensive and the license is very generous. (You can run it on up to five systems with one license.)

[othy]

SyncBack was the program I used to backup my XP HTPC. I was very happy with how it worked, but I wasn't sure if it played nice with WHS. I'll look into it this weekend.

Thanks for the reply.

Tim

[rsteele]

Please let me know how it goes. I too just installed WHS and I'm getting used to it as well.

[othy]

Just wanted to follow with the solution I implemented. I just set this all up yesterday so I can't say definitively it's perfect yet, but so far it's behaving the way I wanted.

I went with the SyncBack freeware version and set it up for daily backups using a method I think MikeInMaui suggested a long time ago. I have a different folder for each day of the week, and then I have seven backup profiles created in SyncBack. Each one runs once a week on a different day and backs up my SageTV directory to that day's folder.

The result is that I will always have a week's worth of backups, since Monday's backup will still be there until it is overwritten the following Monday, and so on. The backups are quick and small since I only backup the actual Sage directory and not the sub-directories--stuff like .property files and wiz.bin. Once per week, the subdirectories get backed up up as well, so I have a copy of my JARs, STVIs, extender setup, etc (which won't get changed very often).

In terms of WHS stuff, I made a new shared folder called Backups to house my daily backup folders, and I turned on folder duplication. So far, SyncBack hasn't had any noticable problems running in the WHS environment. I have to say, it does make me nervous to run software on this machine that isn't "made for" WHS or at least Server 2003. But so far, so good.

If anyone sees holes in this backup scheme or has other suggestions, please speak up.

Tim