Backup options for Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

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Metaluna

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 23, 2008
Messages
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I've just started getting in to virtualization using the free Hyper-V download, and so far I've had great success merging several hosts (including my WHS) onto one physical machine.

One remaining piece I haven't figured out yet though, is how to back up the drive hosting the .VHDs. I've seen several mentions of products like Windows Server Backup and Backup Exec, but it's not clear if these will run on the free version of Hyper-V. Does anyone know for sure?

I suppose one option could be to use something like Acronis to make a boot CD, and then manually image the Hyper-V drive to an external drive periodically. Another would be to install separate programs in each guest OS and back them up individually.
 
If its small scale you should be able to plug in an external USB hard drive and use windows backup to backup nightly.


That's the technique I use with my home setup anyway.
 
No I don't have direct access to MSDN unfortunately.

As for windows backup, I could use that on my Windows XP guest, but doesn't it have to run in the Hyper-V partition in order to see the VHDs?
 
You should be able to use windows backup on the hyper-v server to backup the VHDs. When I get home tonight I'll take a look at how I have it setup.
 
Another option I'm considering is to store my VHDs on a mirrored RAID1 array via a Highpoint 2640x4 controller that I'm currently not using. I was even thinking I could separate out the Hyper-V partition onto a bootable USB flash drive (my Supermicro motherboard has internal USB A ports) and save an HD bay, but I don't know how reliable/fast USB thumb drives are for this application.
 
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regardless of partition i would never stick a server anything other than a backup on a usb drive. For backing up vhds, your backup program must first use VSS (Volume Shadow Copy) which will tell the vms to get the vhds in a good state for backup. The built in server backup tools use this functionality. Does windows server backup come with the free version of hyper-v? I have no idea, but there is one easy way to find out :) .
 
I don't know too much about Windows Server Backup but I found some information on how to use it in one of the MS Technet articles (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc770757.aspx). Just to see if it was installed, I tried out some of the command-line commands as well as the PowerShell cmdlets described in some of the documentation (e.g. wbadmin) but none of them seemed to be present in the free Hyper-V installation, so no luck there :(
 
This command

Code: 
start /w ocsetup WindowsServerBackup


Should install windows server backup on Hyper-V server. Then your command line tools should work.
 
That worked. Thanks! Now I just need to read up on how to use the thing. Hopefully the backup management snap-in for Win7 MMC is available freely.
 
Once Windows Server Backup was installed on the Hyper-V server I was able to control it from my other Windows Server 2008 R2 install on another server.
 
justinthetech said:
Once Windows Server Backup was installed on the Hyper-V server I was able to control it from my other Windows Server 2008 R2 install on another server.
Click to expand...

Yeah I just need to figure out if I can get the management snap-in without having access to another server. I could try installing the eval version of Server 2008 R2 and copy the .msc to my Win7 machines. I'm not sure that's strictly legal though.
 
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DeChache said:
You can install the tools in Win7. Check out this this link
Click to expand...

Thanks. Turns out I already had that installed but had forgotten about it. Unfortunately I can't seem to find any control panels for backup anywhere in the Server Manager console. Is there an extra step I need to do?
 
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