WHS folder duplication useless

J

jay2472000

Gawd
Joined
Oct 6, 2008
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590
SO I have 4 Tb of stuff, all duplicated. Earlier I power cycled my machine and was cleaning the dust off, etc and must have bumped a drive that was spinning or I dont know what. Anyway on restart I get a message before WHS fully boots that drive such-and-such has errors, run chkdsk etc, so I let it run. It found maybe 5 errors, etc, and said it corrected them and went on and booted. now I am getting an error in WHS console about 5 files. So I cant copy, open, do anything with the files. Basically their gone, even though the folder they were in was duplicated. Microsoft suggest deleting the file.......:rolleyes: some correction. And the funny thing is I have been on Newegg for the last 3 days to build a machine strictly for the backup of my WHS data as I was doubtful about folder duplication. I was gonna build a backup machine and turn off duplication...........guess Ill go ahead and hit the buy button...
 
jay2472000 said:
SO I have 4 Tb of stuff, all duplicated. Earlier I power cycled my machine and was cleaning the dust off, etc and must have bumped a drive that was spinning or I dont know what. Anyway on restart I get a message before WHS fully boots that drive such-and-such has errors, run chkdsk etc, so I let it run. It found maybe 5 errors, etc, and said it corrected them and went on and booted. now I am getting an error in WHS console about 5 files. So I cant copy, open, do anything with the files. Basically their gone, even though the folder they were in was duplicated. Microsoft suggest deleting the file.......:rolleyes: some correction. And the funny thing is I have been on Newegg for the last 3 days to build a machine strictly for the backup of my WHS data as I was doubtful about folder duplication. I was gonna build a backup machine and turn off duplication...........guess Ill go ahead and hit the buy button...
Click to expand...

Pull the hard drives and put them in another machine to see if both copies are corrupted?
 
true, that could be done, and I can probably recover it, as apparently when this error happens, it sometimes is because a tombstone is messed up.....but with 8 drives all shoved into a case I custom built, its gonna be a PITA. Im just peeved that I got lured into a false sense of security by folder duplication.
 
anyone else have duplication problems?
 
I've had some tombstone issues in the past due to drive failures before; but the data was still there, just required me to access the drives directly.
 
right, I had a bad screwup when I first started playing with WHS and had to move ALL my data (4 tb) over to a fresh WHS install and do NOT want to go thru that BS all over again, yet, obviously when WHS loses a tombstone it cant recover I suppose. So other than the backup service, I see no reason to use it. I had better luck with a XP Pro with folder permissions set. At least theres not all the issues with Tombstone, and Im getting the most from my 1:1 duplication....:(
 
I found it to be a bit of an annoyance, but I was up and running the same night, so not that big a deal for me. YMMV though ;)
 
really WHS is designed to be a backup device so that data is on 2 machines at the same time...

your workstation and the server... as a file hosting server it is okay, I would prefer linux software raid or HW raid 6 or unraid or zraid..... folder dup sucks because it doesnt do it instantaniously (sp?) like true RAID 1 it does it durring down time..

with the imaged based backup utility in W7 and file specific recovery the WHS backup is less cool......

I would be amazing to combine the W7 backup utility to use WHS rather than them being completely separate..... ala time machine
 
Adidas4275 said:
I would be amazing to combine the W7 backup utility to use WHS rather than them being completely separate..... ala time machine
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I was under the impression that this functionality is coming in the next power pack...that is, you can back up your W7 machines on your WHS with an image-based backup and restore from the network.
 
Well, my solution for now is I have already built another WHS box, and will use it to back up my main WHS. I just started playing with Freenas a few days ago and am still a little too unsure to put too much data on it yet ( Freenas is running on a 250 mhz machine with an 80 gig ide HD for the moment, and I must say I am impressed with it and its ability to make use of that old hardware) I guess WHS keeps 2 copies of your data on separate spindles, but only one copy of the tombstone . Seems dumb to me. The best way I can think of it is, if WHS was in charge of protecting your home, it would have 2 guns in 2 separate places in the house. There would also be a piece of paper with the locations of both guns written down. If it goes to gun1 and its not there it goes to gun2. But without that little piece of paper ( tombstone), it doesnt know where either is.

Its my own fault. I trusted something I a little too much without fully realizing the downfalls. Lucky for me I lost 5 pictures, and I did have them backed up offsite so no big. I mainly wanted others to know ( and rant, boy I was MAD last night) that even with folder duplication on, you can lose data. so dont be lured into false sense of security.
 
Totally understandable.

My not just have a whs and then a backup box running xp pro, Freenas, server 2008 or something and have it setup to backup individual files as a backup of your whs
 
Gonna do one better, setting up a whole other WHS box. Gonna use it to back up the first box. Also gonna play with Freenas for my always on server box. In the end, I should have 2 complete backups of my data. Still kinda irked that I found an achilles heal but no big deal. Hoping others learn from my mistakes.
 
I find it ironic that these workarounds require a second box, and/or it has become such a regular thing.
 
Me too, I got lulled into thinking it was an all in one solution when its not. It is fine for a server, and does a wonderful job of backing up you other PC's. But honestly, I had 8 Tb tied up into one box, and thought the duplication would save me, but it did not. So I decided if I am gonna power and manage 4tb worth of drives it may as well be in a whole other box that will actually be of some good. I guess the lesson learned is WHS is NOT a backup solution, just a NAS with a pretty UI. Honestly though, I am gonna try to learn to use Freenas myself. It seems to have a few features more suited for me as a user, and basically delegate the WHS to a backup of the freenas box and for my other home PC's.
 
i was thinking about using openfiler as a iscsi host for WHS. So use WHS for automated backups, remote access, but turn duplication off and have openfiler running off of a Dell Perc6/i running RAID 6 on WD GP-RE2/3 1T drives.....

then to add another layer of complexity to it.... have WHS really be a guest OS on a Hyper-V server or a Server 2008 R2 with WHS as a Guest OS.

I will be very happy when WHS 2 based on Server 2008 comes out. I am tired of Server 2003....
 
I like the Folder duplication. Haven't had issues with it either.

If something really bad happens, I know I still have my data.
 
I don't see duplication as a backup, just as a "oops that drive died". I still do full backups of my WHS for this reason.

I don't think there is a single box solution yet for full data reliability, at least not on a 4tb+ level. Most likely, a single box will still have a weak link that requires a second box/solution.
 
you could try removing the drive through whs then retry your files. the "backup" tombstones should rebuild any wonky files. if they are gone they are gone. you wont lose anything but time. you can put it back into the system after you try that.
 
time = money. Nah, your correct, I could probably get it back, if I wanted to tear out 8 drives to find it/ I think WHS just lost the tombstone. And since it was just some screencaps from a downloaded video its no big deal. All my really important stuff is backed up well. But thats not the point. If I paid Amazon for cloud storage and they then say "Well, we lost where we put your data, but youre welcome to come in and browse our servers for it" it would be unacceptable. This lost tombstone is unaceptable to me. If I had not had folder dup on, I would be a little more understanding, but since I was supposed to have files on 2 different spindles I thought it was more secure. I guess you can code for drive failure, but not OS failure:rolleyes:
 
thesmokingman said:
I find it ironic that these workarounds require a second box, and/or it has become such a regular thing.
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Exactly and I discovered this very quickly.

I didn't start playing with WHS 'till Feb.'09 but my the end of March I had soo many repair/reinstall hours I knew a backup of my backup was required...pretty sad.

Origionally I thought it was just me cause I can screw a lotta things up very quickly. :D

I only have 1.5TB of saved data and I can't imagine what some of you guys with 2 zillion goober-bytes go thru when a system failure bites ya in the ass.
 
Hippie, I am the same way as you. If theres a way to break it, usually I am lucky (unlucky??) enough to find it. At first I thought it was just me too, but theres definately some flaws in the system, but it does a fair job, and beats the heck out of learning *nix. Not that theres anything wrong with *Nix and other OS'es but I just hate to have to learn a new one just for the sake of getting to my files.

Unfortunately, the more I learn, the less impressed I am. Especially when anything goes wrong the reccomended fixes go along the lines of "1) Reinstall OS " or "if WHS reports a file conflict, you must delete the file" !!!!!

Also, a lot of people are saying WHS is good to back up your main PC's and while I agree, I am NOT gonna store 3 Tb of data on my main PC and have it backed up to WHS. Kinda defeats the whole SERVER part of WHS doesnt it?

Anyway, just because youre using folder duplication, its not a backup as many ( myself included) believed, and I just wanted to get that out there before someone loses a huge chunk of data.
 
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Adidas4275 said:
running off of a Dell Perc6/i running RAID 6 on WD GP-RE2/3 1T drives.....

I will be very happy when WHS 2 based on Server 2008 comes out. I am tired of Server 2003....
Click to expand...
It seems like WHS is recommended quite often but I tried it and wasn't very happy either and moved to a Perc 6/i (RAID 6) myself but just run it under Windows Server 2008 R2 as normal file servers. Even with WD "Green" drives I'm still getting about 200 MB/s which absolutely saturates my GigE connection and I lose much less space than I would have with folder duplication (aka mirroring).

I'm not knocking on WHS but I found it wasn't what I was looking for.
 
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