[How to] setup WHS2011 server backup to use a VHD.

[Mr_Smartepants]

How to setup WHS2011 server backup to use a VHD instead of a local disk.

One of the things that really bugged me about WHS2011 was that in order to setup server backup, you needed to dedicate an entire drive just for server backup because the wizard will take over the entire drive.

Typically, the server backup setup wizard will make you select a drive (not a volume or partition), then format the entire drive and keep it "hidden" (no drive letter) for its exclusive use.

If you later assign a drive letter to the volume used by server backup, you'll eventually break the link and server backups will no longer work.

This is a real pain if you've got a server with restricted drive bays (EX490, MicroServer, etc.) and it's filled with 3-4 TB drives.

 

I have a HP N54L MicroServer with a 120GB SSD for OS and four 4TB drives for data (three for StableBit DrivePool, one for server/client backups).

 

I formatted the 4TB drive as GPT and created a single volume (3.8TB) and moved my client backup folder there.

Then I used Disk Management utility to create a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk).

1. Open CMD prompt as admin and type DISKMGMT.MSC

2. Click on the "Action" menu and select "Create VHD".

3. Click the "Browse" button and select where you want the VHD file to go.

4. Type in a VHD file size (I chose 500 GB which is way too much, but gives room for expansion).  Don't forget to click the pull-down menu and change from "MB" to "GB" or "TB".

5. Click the radial selection for "Dynamically Expanding".

6. Click "OK".

7. Go back to the Disk Management console and scroll down the list.  You'll notice your new Disk is "Unknown", "Not Initialized".

8. Right-click where it says "Not Initialized" and select "Initialize Disk" from the menu.  Select MBR/GPT, I selected "MBR" for the partition type.  Then click "OK".

9. Right-click where it says "Unallocated" and select "New Simple Volume".  Go through the wizard and select drive letter 'X' (to make it easy to spot), and do a quick format with a volume label of "ServerBackup" to make it easy to spot.

10. Open the WHS2011 dashboard and setup server backup to use the new volume X:\ServerBackup you just created.

 

Done.

 

Really, the VHD file can be stored on any volume with a drive letter (local drive, external drive, Drobo or other NAS, etc.).

 

Now, Microsoft made it tricky to keep VHD files mounted after a restart (VHD files always disconnect during a restart).

In order to ensure our server backup volume comes back online after a restart, I wrote the following two scripts at the root of C:\.

 

AttachVHD.cmd

 

@ECHO off
diskpart -s "c:\attach-vhd.txt"
 

 

  

Attach-VHD.txt

 

select vdisk file=X:\ServerBackup.vhd
attach vdisk
 

 

1. Open CMD prompt as admin and type TASKSCHD.MSC

2. In the left pane, click on "Task Scheduler Library".

3. In the right pane, click on "Create basic task".

4. Fill in the Name/Description fields and click "Next".

5. Select the trigger "When the computer starts" and click "Next".

6. Select the action "Start a program" and click "Next".

7. Click "Browse" and select the C:\AttachVHD.cmd file you just created (or whatever you named it/stored it) and click "Next".

8. Check the "Open the Properties dialog..." setting and click "Finish".

9. In the properties "General" tab, check the option to "Run with highest privileges" to prevent UAC from interupting the script.

10. Click "OK" and close all the windows.

 

Done.

 

Now I have a 4TB drives to store all my Client Backups as well as my Server Backups with a little trickery.

I'm too lazy to grab screenshots, so maybe someone else will take this info to make a true guide with all the fancy shmancy eye-candy.

Edited August 4, 2013 by Mr_Smartepants

[diehard]

Hi,

 

Thanks for your efforts. I pinned this topic.

[ikon]

Thanks Mr_Smartepants.

[pcdoc]

This is pretty awesome, thanks for the post.

[timekills]

Great post. One point - I'd suggest GPT only in case you have to ever exceed the 2TB barrier. Although I can't remember if there is a 2TB block on server backups too with WHS2011 so it may be moot.

[Joe_Miner]

Excellent post!  Thank you! +1

[KydDynoMyte]

 

How to setup WHS2011 server backup to use a VHD instead of a local disk.

One of the things that really bugged me about WHS2011 was that in order to setup server backup, you needed to dedicate an entire drive just for server backup because the wizard will take over the entire drive.

..

 

Thanks for this great info. Since the dashboard server backup wizard was giving me trouble over the weekend I remoted into the server and ended up in the Server Manager, Windows Server Backup and in the Schedule Backup wizard I noticed it gave me the option to have the server backup to a dedicated disk or a volume or shared network drive. I haven't messed with those, do they work, does your method have an advantage? In the descritpion It did mention something like a 200% decrease in performance during a backup to a volume I think. I don't think I am liking the dedicated disk method either.

 

[Mr_Smartepants]

Hmm, I didn't look that deep into those methods.  

I did check the difference in the start/finish times for the backups and didn't notice any slowdowns at all.

What I like about the VHD method is my Drobo "backup/sync" script treats the VHD as a "file" instead of a "file system".

[pcdoc]

Great post. One point - I'd suggest GPT only in case you have to ever exceed the 2TB barrier. Although I can't remember if there is a 2TB block on server backups too with WHS2011 so it may be moot.

 

There is.  Still would be worth considering but 2011 was limited to 2T regardless of disk size.

[kylejwx2]

Great Post!

 

I used the VHD feature so that crashplan could see a vhd on my Drobo as a backup target, but I never figured out how automatically attach the VHD on reboot.  Nice.