windows backups

[andrewjs18]

what's everyone using for their windows backups? I find the default windows backup settings to be very minimal and use up way more space than necessary.

 

[pirateghost]

Deltacopy server running on the windows box, and an rsync job running on FreeNAS pulling user profile to a specified dataset hourly, with snapshots every hour on the dataset for 'previous versions' in windows.

 

[andrewjs18]

Deltacopy server running on the windows box, and an rsync job running on FreeNAS pulling user profile to a specified dataset hourly, with snapshots every hour on the dataset for 'previous versions' in windows.

nice. I'll check out deltacopy.

right now I'm pushing my windows backups over a samba share to a ubuntu server using the standard windows backup utility. it does a horrible job at doing incremental backups...

 

[pirateghost]

nice. I'll check out deltacopy.

right now I'm pushing my windows backups over a samba share to a ubuntu server using the standard windows backup utility. it does a horrible job at doing incremental backups...

Yeah. You can use the windows backup utilities and push to a samba share on FreeNAS also, but I find its backup to be overkill. All I really need are user profiles. Reloading a machine isn't too time consuming if something bad happens..plus I could run a full windows image once in a while just to have a semi recent version of the install media. Then just copy over the most recent profile copy...

 

[andrewjs18]

Yeah. You can use the windows backup utilities and push to a samba share on FreeNAS also, but I find its backup to be overkill. All I really need are user profiles. Reloading a machine isn't too time consuming if something bad happens..plus I could run a full windows image once in a while just to have a semi recent version of the install media. Then just copy over the most recent profile copy...

that's the problem I'm having. it'd do incremental backups for a few days just fine, then run a full backup...then do incrementals for a few days and then do another full backup. it was literally EATING up my space. I don't think there's any way to change how often it runs incrementals and full backups - at least not that I'm aware of..

 

[joeschmuck]

I use Acronis True Image to backup my Windoze systems on an automatic scheduled basis. It can be configured to do Full, Differential, and Incremental backups. The great thing about Acronis is when I have to recover from a failure, I boot from a CD, locate my backup files on my FreeNAS server, and restore the image. The thing will even reboot the system for you so you are returned to your Windpze system. If you really needed to, you could do hourly incremental backups but I doubt that is realistic for a home system.

The down side, Acronis is not free.

 

[Thomas.arnard]

Yeah. You can use the windows backup utilities and push to a samba share on FreeNAS also, but I find its backup to be overkill. All I really need are user profiles. Reloading a machine isn't too time consuming if something bad happens..plus I could run a full windows image once in a while just to have a semi recent version of the install media. Then just copy over the most recent profile copy...

so how do you go about making a samba share on FreeNAS?

 

[pirateghost]

so how do you go about making a samba share on FreeNAS?

By reading the documentation?

 

[Spearfoot]

I use the free version of Macrium Reflect to backup my Windows boxes. It's an outstanding product. Among other things, you can mount the backup images and browse them to recover individual files.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

A Windows version of Arq Backup was released recently. I haven't used it but I use the Mac version to backup to FreeNAS using SFTP.

 

[GeoffK]

what's everyone using for their windows backups? I find the default windows backup settings to be very minimal and use up way more space than necessary.

What is your recovery expectations? What version of Windows are you talking about (xp, vista, 7, 8, 10?)

wbadmin works very well for an Image Backup program, is lightweight, is VSS-aware and provides significant backup history where required. Bare Metal Restores are also hardware independent as they use the Windows Installer to grab appropriate drivers where required.

I mean its not without flaws (it can't handle volumes over 2TB, restores need to be back to a disk of *exactly* the same size or larger without some man-handling of the vhd, efi support is... eh) - but its effective if you only need one schedule.

File History also works quite nicely pointed at a network share - but lacks the options for a full system image (at least at first glance - it *is* there, just buried).

That said, if you have a FreeNAS host that is *always* online - redirecting your user profile to a samba share, then using ZFS snapshots and presenting the Shadow copies back over SMB is probably king (and certainly the path i'm employing for domain enabled clients).

When Windows Backup doesn't work for a client (due to reporting reasons, multiple schedules/targets, large volumes, efi installs etc) - I would probably suggest Shadowprotect Desktop as the next application if you're working with Network Share targets.

 

[andrewjs18]

I use the free version of Macrium Reflect to backup my Windows boxes. It's an outstanding product. Among other things, you can mount the backup images and browse them to recover individual files.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

not bad. I'll read up on it.

 

[andrewjs18]

What is your recovery expectations? What version of Windows are you talking about (xp, vista, 7, 8, 10?)

wbadmin works very well for an Image Backup program, is lightweight, is VSS-aware and provides significant backup history where required. Bare Metal Restores are also hardware independent as they use the Windows Installer to grab appropriate drivers where required.

I mean its not without flaws (it can't handle volumes over 2TB, restores need to be back to a disk of *exactly* the same size or larger without some man-handling of the vhd, efi support is... eh) - but its effective if you only need one schedule.

File History also works quite nicely pointed at a network share - but lacks the options for a full system image (at least at first glance - it *is* there, just buried).

That said, if you have a FreeNAS host that is *always* online - redirecting your user profile to a samba share, then using ZFS snapshots and presenting the Shadow copies back over SMB is probably king (and certainly the path i'm employing for domain enabled clients).

When Windows Backup doesn't work for a client (due to reporting reasons, multiple schedules/targets, large volumes, efi installs etc) - I would probably suggest Shadowprotect Desktop as the next application if you're working with Network Share targets.

it'll be backing up 2 windows 7 machines and one windows 8.1 (upgrading to windows 10 when it's released). right now I have my windows machines pushing backups to my ubuntu server 1X day, every day.

my backup plan is this, once I switch it over to freenas: backup windows machines to freenas server, then send that data to an offsite linux server.

 

[hervon]

Urbackup server installed in a jail (search the forums) with UrBackup clients on each windows machines : full & incremental images & files backup. Works great.

 

[andrewjs18]

Urbackup server installed in a jail (search the forums) with UrBackup clients on each windows machines : full & incremental images & files backup. Works great.

thanks, I'll check it out.

 

[GeoffK]

it'll be backing up 2 windows 7 machines and one windows 8.1 (upgrading to windows 10 when it's released). right now I have my windows machines pushing backups to my ubuntu server 1X day, every day.

my backup plan is this, once I switch it over to freenas: backup windows machines to freenas server, then send that data to an offsite linux server.

Legitimately I would use filehistory on Win 8.1.

 

[PeterFig]

I use the free version of Macrium Reflect to backup my Windows boxes. It's an outstanding product. Among other things, you can mount the backup images and browse them to recover individual files.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

Wow.. this is outstanding software; thanks for the suggestion! I had been trying for an rsync solution (how I take care of my Linux boxes), but on Windows that's very much going against the grain. Now I'm using Reflect direct to a FreeNAS Windows share. It has a very nice default configuration for monthly full/weekly differential/daily incremental backups. It also put a bootable image on a USB stick, so you can recover if the computer won't boot.