Windows Server Backup

[JamesDonkin]

AARRRGGHHH!!! I've been trying to configure a new backup drive for the server. Its a Hitachi 4TB Touro USB 3.0 job. To my horror I've learnt the hard way that 2008 Server backup doesn't like any disks with a sector size of more than 512B. Modern big disks are 4K. This shouldn't be any bother as all these big disks can emulate 512B as Hitachi proudly point out in their advanced format brief. But no, the enclosure doesn't pass on this emulation so you're stuck with 4K. No to worry, I'll have the VM make a couple of 2TB VHDs on it, then format those as 512B. No. VHDs wont play with 4K disks either. Microsoft are not particularly to blame but server 2008, which I used to love, has gone way down in my estimation. And Hitachi are just liars.

Now what? I've read that western digital disks can properly emulate 512B so buying one is an option but I'm going to look a bit of a pillock asking for one so soon after that.

Has this happened to anyone else? Has anyone got this to work somehow other than dropping another £150?

Cheers!

James

[Duke5A]

I think you might be out of luck as far as using the built-in backup solution. Maybe try robocopy? I was messing around with Power Shell and wrote a script that would create a folder with the current date and copy data to it using robocopy. You can run it as a scheduled task and it'll even keep an eye on drive space. The $dstDelThreshold variable at the top tells it how many copies to keep. It's not the cleanest, but it was my first stab at PS scripting.

$srcPath = "\\server01\share"
$dstPath = "\\server02\share"
$dstDelThreshold = "2"

$Date = Get-Date -Format yyyy-MM-dd-HH-mm
$srcStats = Get-ChildItem -R -Force $srcPath | Measure-Object -property length -sum
$srcSize = "{0:N2}" -f ($srcStats.sum / 1MB) + " MB"
$srcCount = $srcStats.Count

"Backup job started on: $Date" | Out-File $dstPath\$Date.log

$dstPathSplit = $dstPath.Split("\")
$Server = $dstPathSplit.Get(2)
$ShareName = $dstPathSplit.Get(3)
$Share = [WMI]"\\$Server\root\cimv2:Win32_Share.Name='$ShareName'"
$DriveLetter = $Share.Path -Replace '\\.*$'
$Volume = [WMI]"\\$Server\root\cimv2:Win32_LogicalDisk.DeviceID='$DriveLetter'"
$dstFreeSpace = "{0:N2}" -f ($Volume.Freespace / 1MB) + " MB"

"Job size: $srcSize" | Out-File $dstPath\$Date.log -append
"Destination free space: $dstFreeSpace" | Out-File $dstPath\$Date.log -append

$dstBackups = Get-ChildItem $dstPath | where {$_.Attributes -eq 'Directory'} | Sort-Object Name
If ($dstBackups.Count -gt $dstDelThreshold){Remove-Item $dstBackups[0].FullName -Force -R}

If($Volume.Freespace -gt $srcStats.sum){write-host "I'll Fit"
	$Start = Get-Date -Format yyyy-MM-dd-HH:mm
	"Copy started: $Start" | Out-File $dstPath\$Date.log -append
	New-Item -Path $dstPath -Name "$Date" -type directory
	RoboCopy $srcPath $dstPath\$Date /MIR /LOG:"$dstPath\$Date - Robocopy.log"
	$End = Get-Date -Format yyyy-MM-dd-HH:mm
	"Copy ended: $End" | Out-File $dstPath\$Date.log -append
	}
	
ElseIf($Volume.Freespace -lt $srcStats.sum){write-host "nope"
	"Copy aborted.  Not enough free space." | Out-File $dstPath\$Date.log -append
	}

[JamesDonkin]

Thanks a lot Duke. That'll do for the time being. Scripting is something I really need to learn though.

[synaesthesia]

If you're backing up anything more than a few gig, ignore WSB unless you want each backup to take a week. Robocopy is quicker (if you can't script there's always someone on Google who can )

[ronanian]

I have the same problem. Worked fine with Hitachi Touro 3TB. Vendor says that model is discontinued so I went with the next closest thing, Touro 4TB...fail. This is really irritating. Why can't anybody make backup software that's robust, dependable, and has useful error messages?

[ronanian]

Also, I tried the WD format utility that people claim fixes the problem, but it won't touch the Hitachi drive.

I emailed Hitachi Touro tech support to ask if they have a similar utility. Just as I finished that I noticed this logo at the top of the support screen:


What kind of insult is this? Seriously WD, your utility is so bureaucratic that it won't use a differently branded drive when that brand is "a Western Digital company"?

[squeeky]

An idea that occurred to me. Have you tried sharing the drive using a network share and then backing up to itself ? eg \\127.0.0.1\4TBDRIVE and then see if it gets around the problem ? Strange how some of these things work

[JamesDonkin]

Nice idea mate but this is what WSB thinks of that:

[squeeky]

Windows 2008 always thought that about networb backups you can tweak the options i think if you do it from the command line

[squeeky]

also this is worth looking at. but before spending too much time i would check that the same problem wont happen that you originally posted.

mksbackup can:
wbadmin use Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) on the source disk to backup only changed block and does a kind of incremental backup. Every 15 backups, wbadmin does a full backup.
wbadmin use VSS on the target disk (when possible) to maintain multiple versions of the backup.

MKSBackup free wbadmin command line front-end

[cpjitservices]

I no longer like or use Server Backup, instead I use Cobian. It's brilliant and free - I tell a lie actually I think I use Windows Server Backup for a bare metal once a week, everything else I use Cobian. Really simple to use and easy to recover stuff and it backs up anywhere!!!

Cobian Backup

[XspydazX]

Actually I solved this by using a USB 2.0 enclosure windows enabled me to format as normal create and attach a vhd file instantly whereas the USB 3.0 that the hitachi 4tb touro came with did not . The problem all along was the electronics as the touro comes up as its own device Id not as a regular harddrive although it gives the impression or emulates the harddrive .
A cheep enclosure was simple enough 20 quid . I ripped the 4tb out and now my money has been well spent .... Oops I plugged into a USB 3.0
Port and enjoyed speed too....

[XiJ]

Came across the same problem with Win2k8R2 and hitachi/4k drives (even 2tb drives).

I also worked around with Cobian. For the system back up, I did that to an internal drive partition and scripted it to copy that backup to an external drive