Using Windows Server Backup to backup to a Network Drive

[Joanne]

I've got a NAS and I'm using it to store backups with Windows Server Backup - but not in the way where you only have 1 copy!

 

So what you has to do is...

 

In Manage, right click Disk Management. Select Create VHD. Create a virtual hard drive on your NAS box... depending on size this may take some time.

 

Once that's done, it will be mounted as a disk. Initialise the disk and then use it for your Windows Server Backup!

 

Simples!

 

Everything has set up nicely this morning, so the ultimate test will be doing the backup tonight. Wish me luck!

[fairm010]

I have to try this! BRB

[Joanne]

Looks like this... notice the lovely blue colour!

 

[fairm010]

The particular NAS I will be using is just for backups, would you recommend just creating the VHDX the size of the NAS?

[Joanne]

I created one 3/4 of the size. Mine is a RAID 1 4TB, so I created a 1.5TB hard drive. Just incase I need to archive anything there. If you know you aint gonna archive, use the whole thing.

 

It took a fair few hours to create the disk... I left it going overnight!

[fairm010]

Percect will do, I have a separate NAS for archiving

[sted]

be aware depending on the nas ive found that it can often disconnect the vhd for no reason meaning backup fail. I had it working fine at two schools for months then it just keeps dropping the vhd all the time. One was a microserver running win7 so i converted that into a freenas and dropped the vhd back to an iscsi drive that seems more stable so far. The other is just a crummy netgear so im not sure what to do

[Joanne]

I've got a buffalo terastation. If it is going idle when not used, you should be able to change settings on the web-access bit? If it has that!

[sted]

I've got a buffalo terastation. If it is going idle when not used, you should be able to change settings on the web-access bit? If it has that!

 

its set to not go idle and often i need to reboot the nas or the server just says the file is in use. I suspect im goping to have to back up the nas and try that as an iscsi as well as some point

[3s-gtech]

I do the same, but use an iSCSi connection so the servers see the LUNs as native disks. Been pretty reliable, backing up five servers this way.

[sted]

I do the same, but use an iSCSi connection so the servers see the LUNs as native disks. Been pretty reliable, backing up five servers this way.

 

only issue with backing up directly to iscsi is if you ever need to move the backup ive not found a way not using vhd where i can change the backup location and not have to start again losing the existing backups even ghosting the drive diddnt seem to work

[mikkydoos]

Surely that still means you only have one backup but within a VHD.

 

Wot am I missing ?

Edited April 30, 2015 by mikkydoos

[sted]

Surely that still means you only have one backup but within a VHD.

 

Wot am I missing ?

 

no because windows backup (and windows itself) sees the vhd as a dedicated backup drive and you can have as many backups as you can cram on there

[mikkydoos]

aaahhhhhhh. I seeeeeeee

[Blue_Cookeh]

This is really interesting... it never occurred to me to 'trick' WSB into doing multiple backups like this.

 

Are you guys using iSCSI and backing up directly to that drive? Having not played with iSCSI before, would I need to VLAN it off or can it run across our default VLAN? Not entirely sure what the traffic is like for it...

[Joanne]

my disk has been offline so it hasn't tried backing up to it yet... I just added it as an extra, not instead of. Might change that next week if it doesn't start writing to it.

 

I just have a flat network, so no vlanning for me.

 

I needed the best way to sort out backups to a remote drive, so did a bit of research. Thought I would share my findings!

[DCUK6]

Interesting.

 

Ive seen you can select multiple backup disks.

Wondering if it can use both a usb and the nas as dedicated backup disks and backup to both.

[Joanne]

that's how I have it set at the moment. I have it do one full backup a week and incrementals. I'm thinking instead of overwriting on the USB it will write onto the new disk.

[Joanne]

OK so it didn't use the network disk as an additional saving place. So I removed the USB drive and now the backup goes straight to the NAS. So it works nicely!

 

[mikeprice]

Just noticed this thread - great idea - will try it over half term!!

[Joanne]

No worries. I've been looking for a way to do this for years!!! Finally had some time to research it.

[sted]

Just noticed this thread - great idea - will try it over half term!!

 

id try creating a small vhd (as its quick) on the nas and see if it stays mounted as one of mine still keeps dropping the vhd over time so backup fails and vhd wont reconnect till I reboot the nas box. I think on that one im going to have to bite the bullet copy all files to an external usb hdd from the nas (luckily both are usb3 so it should complete in a reasonable timeframe) and then set up iscsi on it and copy the vhd file back to the iscsi drive. Trouble is last time I tried iscsi on a readynas (it was a 104 this is a same generation 102) it constantly crashed and went offline that way.

[Joanne]

I'm using a Buffalo TeraStation 1200. It is set to never sleep.

 

My VHD unmounts when the server is rebooted. I need to create a script to re-add it on startup...

[sted]

I'm using a Buffalo TeraStation 1200. It is set to never sleep.

 

My VHD unmounts when the server is rebooted. I need to create a script to re-add it on startup...

 

ive never managed to get that to work either it only seems to work when the script is run as a logged in user (so I just added it to the all users startup folder on the server iirc)

[Joanne]

Did you use powershell? Just having a look at it now. My head is already starting to implode even though it's like... 2 lines long!

 

#> 


param
(
   [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
   [string]$Path
)

if(test-path -Path $path)
{
   
   #Create diskpart configuration file
   $content = "select vdisk file= `"$path`"`nattach vdisk" 
   #Output the file and store the file into user profile folder
   out-file -InputObject $content -FilePath "$env:USERPROFILE\MountVHD.txt" -Encoding ascii -Force 
   #Add schedule task
   schtasks /create /tn "MountVHD" /tr "diskpart.exe /s 'C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\cmd.txt'" /sc ONLOGON

   write-host "Operation executed successfully. The specified VHD file will be mounted next logon."
}
Else
{
   Write-Warning "The path is invalid."
}