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Server Imaging Software


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I'm looking to see what recommendations anyone has for imaging a server. If there is a free option that would be great, but i'm pretty sure that we'll need to purchase one which is fine. The main thing is, I need it to backup the data live without taking the server offline. Any recommendations? Thank you.

The OS in question is Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard edition.

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Thanks for the options, I'll take a look through the features.

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why not use windows server backup. The one that comes with windows 2008 r2? Just plug in an USB hdd or give it a network path and your done. Takes a full image of the drive. you would restore it using the usb hdd and the windows 2008 r2 install dvd

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why not use windows server backup. The one that comes with windows 2008 r2? Just plug in an USB hdd or give it a network path and your done. Takes a full image of the drive. you would restore it using the usb hdd and the windows 2008 r2 install dvd

I didn't even think of that, do you know if it is reliable?

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I didn't even think of that, do you know if it is reliable?

Yes it is. I have done a lot of single file restores from the backups it creates. It uses the same backend parts that the pay ones use. It uses the built in vss system. If you keep the usb hdd plugged in it makes it very easy to restore things quickly.

As a backup to the backup I use backupexec .

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clonezilla

Another option:

dd

Although both of those utilities can be very useful, I don't think either fits the OP's requirement of imaging the server while it's online. Clonezilla has the capability of doing online backups in Linux, but even then it only supports a handful of file systems that were built with that requirement in mind (such as btrfs).Not only is dd likely a poor candidate due to its complete lack of image compression, but it also doesn't work very well in Windows.

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If you are paying Symantec prices and looking at a dedicated backup server I would look strong and hard at a unitrends appliance. By the time you factor in all of your hardware and your software to be 100% legit and properly size the appliance the cost is very similar. The difference is the unitrends appliance is a self contained dr solution. You can spin up server backups/images on itself, meaning this is capable of running a server that crashed or in a test environment seperated from your network directly on the appliance. It can also due bare metal restores on dissimilar hardware or in VMware or hyper-v or other hypervisors. It can also restore individual items vs the entire server. The appliance is a full self contained disaster recovery solution. It is the only hardware appliance as of now that offers "instant restore".

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Just a little background info, we have a potential hardware failure, not sure if it's one of the drives in our array or the controller going bad, but I wanted to get a backup because HP wants us to do a firmware upgrade. I just want to be sure we have something to restore too if the worst happens. We're having our customer verify that data is backed up, but the image will save us headaches of having to re-install everything etc.

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I have tried several the best is Doubletake Software. You can get the Move software for $250 and the license is good for 30 or 60 days, and it will clone you current server to the new server, and they will assist you as needed. I have used it to moved an Exchange 2007 server from Boston to the MidWest, and the target was a VMWare image. It worked great. It worked so well the client panic because they were not able to get things in the past. They are looking to purchase more license to mirror the servers for DR purposes.

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Then use any imaging software, unfortunately all will require you to do an offline image of it...meaning you will need to shutdown the server. Or at least a reboot of the server to install drivers to be able to do a online image of the server. vmware has a p2v software that should take care of exchange without issue...I have not done exchange personally, but I have done sql and it works flawlessly. I have used doubletake in the past, it is old technology but it works.

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Then use any imaging software, unfortunately all will require you to do an offline image of it...meaning you will need to shutdown the server. Or at least a reboot of the server to install drivers to be able to do a online image of the server. vmware has a p2v software that should take care of exchange without issue...I have not done exchange personally, but I have done sql and it works flawlessly. I have used doubletake in the past, it is old technology but it works.

Doubletake will not require you to do this, it will replicate the system with it online and running, I would just turn off the virus scanner to allow it to go quicker. It uses MS shadow copy functions and features to make copies.

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HP and their firmware. Standard reply for any hardware failures it seems. I wish I could count how many times I have been asked if we have reseated the drive and tried a firmware upgrade to the storage controller to resolve drive failures :(

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Then use any imaging software, unfortunately all will require you to do an offline image of it...meaning you will need to shutdown the server. Or at least a reboot of the server to install drivers to be able to do a online image of the server. vmware has a p2v software that should take care of exchange without issue...I have not done exchange personally, but I have done sql and it works flawlessly. I have used doubletake in the past, it is old technology but it works.

The windows server 2008 r2 built in backup does not require the server to be offline. It uses VSS to backup any running files.

What hp servers are they? we have 2 ml 350 g6's that the backplane cage went.

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majortom, That is true the built in one does not...it is built in, already installed, requires no third party software/drivers to install.

johnnyq, I haven't used it in a while but from what I remember it did need a reboot. It has always been able to do it online, like most other imaging softwares. Acronis, ghost, easeus, etc. It has third party software and/or drivers that it loaded which required a reboot in the past (going back to 2000-2003 days though).

the p2v vmware software does not require a reboot so that may be a moot point now utilizing vss without the need of a third party copy driver/agent other than to talk with vss which is why database images are flawless, there was a time where you needed to be in a shutdown state to be able to grab databases properly.

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