Using ASR on Windows Server 2003 1

[geo1s2]

Hi There,

I'm looking at the best way of implementing ASR on my Windows 2003 server. When I get to the point where I have to make the ASR back.bkf I have had conflicting information on where to save this file. Should this be saved on the same harddisk, tape or another server? Microsoft say that you need at 1GB of space for this file (this is an understatement!)When I tried to run ASR it tried to backup the whole volume which was over 26GB! Is there a way of just backing up the Windows 2003 server system and not all the files on the volume?

Has anyone had experience of doing this?

George

"If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either."

 

[markdmac]

The ASR is a combination of a backup file and a bootable floppy. The ASR only backs up the System Partition. So however large that is will determine the size of the backup media you need.

My suggestion is to purchase an external USB 2.0 IDE drive case and buy yourself a few 200GB IDE drives that you can pop in and out of the case. Create your backup and floppy using the USB drive to hold the large backup file and store the hard disk and floppy in a safe place off site for disaster recovery. When you have a failure, attach the drive and boot off of the floppy to have the system partition recreated with the backed up data/configuration.

Make sure you recreate the ASR every now and then, but especially after service pack installs or after lots of changes in AD.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[geo1s2]

Thanks Mark,

I must have a huge system partition! I like the idea of using IDE external usb drives but it does sound like a lot of investment and as we already have a backup system in place, is this really needed? It sounds very hobbiest is execution, for the home user...in the business arena I'm not so sure it's a viable option...what do you think?


George.

"If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either."

 

[markdmac]

The cost of the case is about $45 and a drive can run you about $80. If you have an adequate tape system then no, you won't need it. You should however be aware that tape is a dying technology since it can't keep up with modern disk sizes. Hard disk based backups are the future.

There are more expensive solutions you could invest in that will run you about $600 for hot swapable SATA drives, or you could up the price into the thousands if you want the same thing for SCSI. Main difference here is that these systems are designed for daily use. What I am proposing is for very infrequent use and such robustness is not necessary.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[geo1s2]

Thanks for all your help Mark. I will consider these options for the future, but at the moment I will have to make do with our current backup system as out budget doesn't allow. Thanks Again.



"If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either.

 

[zoeythecat]

Mark,

Can the ASR backup destination be a network drive? Or does the destination file have to be local to the PC via USB Hard drive, etc?

Sorry for the late post.

Tia,
Zoey

 

[krenkey]

you can save it where ever you want. But when the time comes to use it you will need to extract the 2 files for the floppy disk.

 

[zoeythecat]

Right but when that time comes will I be able to access a network share during this process? Will networking be available?

 

[markdmac]

No networking won't be available unless you have modified the boot floppry to include DOS based NIC drivers and mapped the drive.

So going back to my original argument, isn't the $80 for a USB drive worth saving your companies data and saving you hours of work rebuilding a server?

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[zoeythecat]

Mark,

Thanks for verifying this. I assume that during this process I would be able to connect the USB hard drive. Would USB drivers be available during this process as well? I assume it would. If so then yes I would agree that a $80 USB drive would be a great investment. I have 9 Servers in my environment so having an $80 USB hard drive would be priceless to be able to do this ASR backup for all 9 servers.

Thanks,
Zoey

 

[NickFerrar]

Tape is far from a dying technology thanks to the requirement for taking backups off-site. Disk is far more expensive and fragile than tape...

 

[markdmac]

Yes, the ASR should be able to configure it to access the drive. Note: you will want to ensure the card it is connected to supports USB 2.0.

Nick, I can tell you for fact that the shifing of mindset on this is to disk within MS. There is speculation if Longhorn will even support tape.

Physical disks are getting smaller in size and larger in capacity all the time. Taking a removable disk offsite is no more difficult than a tape.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[zoeythecat]

Mark,

Thanks a bunch for clearing this up for me. You have helped me think out a disaster recovery plan.

Thanks,
Zoey

 

[markdmac]

Both I and Microsoft would highly recommend using ShadowCopy as a part of your backup plan. Using ShadowCopy can eliminate the need for going to a backup tape/drive whatever in most cases other than the full disater recovery.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[zoeythecat]

I have an interesting issue. After running the ASR backup on my Exchange Server as well as our DNS Server I get this message in the System Log in Event Viewer after completing the back up:
Event ID:57, Source=Ftdisk, Description: The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur

This same condition occurred on my main DNS Server. This only happened after running this ASR backup. Now this message has appeared a few times on my Exchange Server. Apparently this ASR backup needs to be run with caution. I may need to run chkdsk and reboot.

Has anyone else experienced this?



Zoey

 

[zoeythecat]

Disregard,

I found one of the possibilities it could have been "unsafe removal of USB Drive". I powered off the USB Hard Drive before stopping the USB Drive from Windows. This may be why I got this error.

 

[markdmac]

Depending on what partition you have your Exchange databases you should also stop the Exchange Information Store as well. This should only be necessary if the store is on the system partition.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

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