Topic: Documentation about USB-Backup im 7.2

[stimzuk]

Hi, can anybody give me a link where i find the documentation concerning USB-Backup in SME-Server 7.2?
I have Raid1 installed with two identical discs but i also want to make once a while a complete (bootable) backup on a 3rd identical disk via USB - is this possible?
With this i want to make a periodical backup on an external disk (bootable, system and data).

Thanks

[jester]

Hi stimzuk,
The standard backup possibilities in SME do not make a bootable backup, they require you to re-install a base system (takes mostly about 30min.) and then restore your data from backup, read the manual here. To be fair at the moment standard SME will only do a manual USB backup from the admin console (though there is an update on its way...). You could search the forums for other contribs that do what you want, or you could do a manual 'ghost' to you usb-drive with a tool like Partimage.

HTH.

[raem]

stimzuk

You can swap out one of the RAID disks for a blank disk (identical size) and sme can then rebuild the array (from the admin console menu). The disk you removed is a fully configured server with all apps installed etc as at that date/time.
In an emergency you can use the removed RAID disk to get your server up and running, with only that disk installed, and then add a blank disk to rebuild the array. You would then selectively restore data from normal daily backups.

If you want to do this regularly, install a removable drive caddie.
You will need to power down to swap disks, as the current kernel does not support hot swap.

[stimzuk]

Hi Ray,

thank you very much, this is what i want to do.

best regards
Stimzuk

[mmccarn]

stimzuk

If you have a spare computer around you might want to look at Affa - One of its features is to let you easily convert the 'backup' server into the 'primary' server with one command and a reboot in the event of server failure - in addition to providing arbitrary granularity for your backups (backup every other hour, save the last 10 days, save the last 8 weeks, save the last 18 months, save the last 2 years, for example).

With Affa configured to backup every other hour a primary server failure could be rectified in minutes with only a couple hours of data loss...

[raem]

stimzuk

thank you very much, this is what i want to do.

Keep in mind that when you insert/swap in a drive into the RAID1 array, the new drive should be totally blank, or the array may boot up & resync to the wrong (old) data set, on the drive you just inserted.

You can blank the drive partitions first using delpart.exe (google for it) or a similar partition deletion tool, or even a suitable Linux command.
For safety reasons this is probably best done on another machine, ie to avoid accidently deleting the wrong drive contents.

Then use the admin console to rebuild the array, and in an hour or two you have a fully working RAID1 plus a seperate off site bootable drive (fully configured).

[stimzuk]

Thank you very much - this helps!