backup question

[wassie]

hi,

I'm not able to post any questions in the VDS forum, so I hope it is ok that I ask my question in here.

I have a VDS at NFO Chicago. I'm really in the need of a backup mechanism that gives me the possibility to backup my complete VDS, or if that is not possible, a backup of my Windows 2008 system and the possibility to restore to this backup with the Windows restore options.

Can any one help me with that?

best regards,
Wouter

[kraze]

There will definitely be many options available to you, it really just depends on what you want to backup and how often. For example, you could use DropBox to automatically backup certain files. viewtopic.php?f=46&t=9371

Alternatively, you could do what I do and choose to only backup crucial files by hand to another VDS or some off-site file sharing place such as Google Drive or Amazon.

[wassie]

thanks Kraze, I do know how to backup certain files with cloud options. But I'm needing a complete operation system backup, not just files. Sorry if I didn't made that clear.

[kraze]

In theory you can instruct Windows Backup to connect to a remote computer and backup that way. Though, I've personally never tried that before, so I'm not sure on the exact process of that.

[wassie]

that should only work if the VDS can go to an external ip I gues.
Can NFO confirm if this would work?

I don't have that much experience with Windows 2008. Is the Windows backup procedure comparing with cloning a disk?

[Edge100x]

I haven't experimented with it myself, but I would expect for Windows backup and restorations to work. It would be a good idea to test to be safe.

You could also back up only your important files, such as using a batch file.

The main backup options on Windows are:

- Using a Windows share and a script to copy things to another VDS.
- A third-party backup service (such as one mentioned in http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2288745,00.asp), as long as it supports Windows Server editions.
- A service like Google Drive or Dropbox and regularly copying your most important files to that (either automatically or manually).
- SSD storage and copying files to the SSD storage (either automatically or manually). In most cases, SSD-backed storage here is on a separate RAID from the regular storage (the only exception to this is with machines that exclusively use SSD storage).

On Linux, the best backup option is usually to rent a one-core VDS or service at a third party and then use "rsync" to clone the system to it. You could even use rsync to create snapshots, in order to make more than one backup and save disk space by sharing identical files between them (http://rsnapshot.org/ is one implementation of this).

[wassie]

Thank you for your reply! I will try and test it. I still have a second VDS that is for testing purpose so I will try that. I'm using Acronis True Image on desktop and will check if that could work for server edition too. The most interesting part is how to boot from a bootable cd or dvd, while not be able to acces the VDS with that kind of bootable. The only boot option is the Windows restore if I'm correct.

[Edge100x]

As long as the licensing allows it, we can add a bootable ISO image for your preferred restoration software as an option to your VDS, if you need it.

On Windows, I prefer piecemeal backups of just important files, since restoring the overall system can be complicated. On Linux, I like full backups, since restoring is easy.

[wassie]

ahh, that is great news, I didn't know that part of the bootable cd!