Advice For A Backup Regime For A Windows Multiboot Machine.

[UncleFester]

Hello To You All,

I have managed to get myself in a state of backup befuddlement concerning my main computer.

It is a multiboot Win 8 machine. I want to backup this macine to my FreeNAS server.

It has 4 instances of Win 8 installed as follows:

1. DAW OS (configured especially for making music).
2. General OS (for day to day stuff).
3. Test OS (for testing software and trying to learn how to program).
4. VM OS (created for experimenting with Virtual Machines and trying things out on a FreeNAS VM instead of my actual FreeNAS server).

The goal is to be able to backup each OS independently of the other. This way I will be able to roll back any OS on the machine to a certain point without also rolling back all the other OS's. I would like this to be administered via the FreeNAS server, but I don't understand RSync at the moment and do not even know if RSync is appropriate to my situstaion.

I have tried backing up each OS using a trial version of Acronis. These images are stored locally and then copied manually to the FreeNAS server as Acronis can't communicate with the FreeNAS server when it reboots into it's own start-up program.
This has failed. It results in being able to restore any particular OS of my choice, but renders all the other OS's non-bootable (but they do appear in the Windows boot manager).

All I can do with any success is take one image of the entire system and restore from that. This works fine but the OS's can no longer be rolled back indepenently. This is really important to me.

Also this approach involves having to remember to make backups and to copy the images across to the FreeNAS server. I would prefer something entirely automated because I'm a bit forgetful/senile these days.

There is also a further complication caused by the DAW OS. When recording multiple tracks and simultaneously playing back multiple samples, HDD activity can become quite intensive. So it is best if the DAW OS is backed up manually when I ask for it and not automatically. This will ensure there are no audio glitches or drop outs caused by a backup going on in the background when making music.

I have no idea how to approach this problem or if it is even possible to backup a multiboot system in this way.

If anyone has some advice I would be very pleased to hear it as I have hit a dead end here.

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to respond.

UncleFester

 

[depasseg]

I think you need to step back and learn more about how multi-boot is configured and works. I think there is a lot of complexity that isn't easily separated into neat stacks like what you want to do. You are seeing this in your Acronis testing.

If I can make a suggestion it would be to look into picking one OS as your primary, and install a virtualization capability there to host the other 3 OS instances. This way you could back up each one separately, and roll back independently as needed.

 

[UncleFester]

Thank you for your response @depasseg and my apologies for not responding to your post sooner.

You are quite correct when you say I need more knowledge. There is a great deal I need to learn about all sorts of things and not just multiboot configurations

Thank you for your suggestion regarding virtualization, it never even entered my mind to use VMs.
I think you have just given me the answer I am looking for.

I think making the DAW OS a VM could cause some problems as audio software tends to need direct access to the (in my case) specialist audio hardware (RME card). But if I make the DAW OS the primary OS, then I think this could work very well. I just didn't want to put a personal firewall and virus checker on the DAW OS as it can disrupt music making. But I can't have it all my own way :D

Now I need to learn about VMs.

Can anyone recommend a hypervisor (preferably a free one), that will run on a Win8.1 (x64) machine?

Thanks again for the help.

UncleFester.

 

[depasseg]

I haven't used it, but look into Virtualbox.

 

[Spearfoot]

Thank you for your response @depasseg and my apologies for not responding to your post sooner.

You are quite correct when you say I need more knowledge. There is a great deal I need to learn about all sorts of things and not just multiboot configurations

Thank you for your suggestion regarding virtualization, it never even entered my mind to use VMs.
I think you have just given me the answer I am looking for.

I think making the DAW OS a VM could cause some problems as audio software tends to needs direct access to the (in my case) specialist audio hardware (RME card). But if I make the DAW OS the primary OS, then I think this could work very well. I just didn't want to put a personal firewall and virus checker on the DAW OS as it can disrupt music making. But I can't have it all my own way :D

Now I need to learn about VMs.

Can anyone recommend a hypervisor (preferably a free one), that will run on a Win8.1 (x64) machine?

Thanks again for the help.

UncleFester.

I've installed just about every version of Windows known to Man, including 8.x, on Oracle's free VirtualBox.



For Windows-based backup software, I recommend and use the free version of Macrium Reflect, which 'Just Works', as Dr. Pournelle used to say. It's quite possible Reflect can handle your complicated multi-boot setup, but I wouldn't stake my reputation on it.

 

[chris crude]

Thank you for your response @depasseg and my apologies for not responding to your post sooner.

You are quite correct when you say I need more knowledge. There is a great deal I need to learn about all sorts of things and not just multiboot configurations

Thank you for your suggestion regarding virtualization, it never even entered my mind to use VMs.
I think you have just given me the answer I am looking for.

I think making the DAW OS a VM could cause some problems as audio software tends to needs direct access to the (in my case) specialist audio hardware (RME card). But if I make the DAW OS the primary OS, then I think this could work very well. I just didn't want to put a personal firewall and virus checker on the DAW OS as it can disrupt music making. But I can't have it all my own way :D

Now I need to learn about VMs.

Can anyone recommend a hypervisor (preferably a free one), that will run on a Win8.1 (x64) machine?

Thanks again for the help.

UncleFester.

Hyper-v should be baked into win8.1

 

[UncleFester]

Once again thanks for the help @depasseg I will take a look at Virtualbox.

Also thank you @Spearfoot for your response. I will have a look at Macrium Reflect, but I am begining to suspect that I am trying to do something that is not possible with Windows, but I will give it a go and see what happens.

Thanks.

UncleFeaster.

 

[UncleFester]

Thanks for the response @chris crude

I was unaware Win8 had a VM client built into it. Thanks for letting me know.

UncleFester.

 

[depasseg]

Hyper-v should be baked into win8.1

Thanks, I was wondering about that. I skipped Win 8, so I wasn't sure.

 

[toadman]

You have multiple options. :)

For virtualization on Windows you have HyperV, Virtualbox, and VMWare Player, all free. Personally I use VMWare Workstation, a paid version of Player. I have also used Virtualbox with success.

Re: backups. Besides Macrum Free, you can look at Veeam Endpoint Backup Free. You can do disk, partition, or file based backup. In your case you could do a disk backup or partition backup on the host, then if needing to restore a particular OS that is a VM, just restore those particular files. OR, you could run it independently within each of the OS instances and do a full restore inside the VM.

 

[UncleFester]

Thanks @toadman for your input and thank you for pointing out a few options I was unaware of.
I have never used VMs before so this is new territory for me.

I will need to go and have a think about which option would be best. I assume each option (i.e. backup/restoring VMs from files or from inside the OS that is a VM) has it's relative advantages/disadvantages. I would appreciate any advice on this.

Thanks for the help.

UncleFester.

I skipped Win 8

Smart man, I wish I could have done the same :D

 

[toadman]

Backing up from the host OS would mean you are creating (a) a host image backup (so you can restore the host image to a disk/ssd if it fails or needs to be rolled back) and (b) file/folder backups of the VM directories. If the VMs need to be rolled back you just restore the directory that holds that particular VM and voila, restart and you are at the roll back point. Advantage here is you manage it all from the host OS and you use file restore to roll back the VMs.

If you backup from within the VM, then you would do a host image backup and restore the entire host image if you needed to roll back. Advantage is portability of the VM. i.e. it doesn't matter what system it's on, you know the backup will execute. If you were to move the VM to a different system then you would be dependent on that new host system for backup.

The first option will probably be easier for you as it's typically (depending on your backup software) MUCH easier to restore files than restore a host image. (The latter may require booting to restore media.) Also, it doesn't sound like you would need portability of the VM.

 

[UncleFester]

Thanks @toadman that has really clarified the two options for me. I now know how to go forward with this.
I think you're correct, the first option would be better for me.

Thanks again for your help and thanks to @depasseg for his input.

UncleFester.