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My desktop PC was getting slower and slower, suffering from the usual Windows bloat that happens over time. So I was gearing up for the big format/reinstall routine. I usually try to do that every year or so.
So I clicked on the WHS icon and told it to do one "final" backup, and named it so. It's funny because the WHS screen where you can name the backup, they given an example of names you might give, and the example is "Backup before OS reinstall". So I guess they know that people do this pretty often.
I had then planned to wait until this weekend for the actual reinstall, so i'd have plenty of time and could go do other things around the house while I plodded through all the steps, but my internal RAID had different ideas (both our desktops have an internal RAID1). It had fairly regularly been deciding suddenly to rebuild, and once a couple months ago it actually said one of the hd's failed. This was the same thing....hd failed. Last time, I just removed the hd from the raid, then reinserted it, and it rebuilt and all was well. This time, it wasn't going to take it back no matter what.
I'm not completely convinced yet the drive itself is bad. While the RAID has saved me several times from a single disk failure...I'm beginning to wonder if the RAID was causing those failures in the first place.
Because I have WHS backing everything up every day, I've decided to finally rid myself of the RAID.
Now, the nice thing is that I *could* just convert the RAID to a normal single drive, and then restore the last backup from WHS, because the size would not have changed. However, since I was going to reinstall anyway, I just decided to move it up to last night. Meh, it doesn't take too long to update and patch.
While I was at it, it occured to me....once I've got the *BARE MINIMUM* stable install on the PC (all drivers up to date and loaded, all Windows updates applied, etc), I should once again back it up and name it. I will then have a saved copy of a clean reinstall, and so next time instead of formatting/reinstalling from the windows discs, I should just be able to do a restore from WHS. This is a very appealing idea, and only time will tell if it works or not. A big part of the plan supposes that a year from now when I'm looking to do a clean reinstall again, the WHS backup will still be there. I know I can go in and keep WHS from deleting it as part of its normal maintenance, but I mean just the idea that WHS will be stable and running for that long is kind of a leap of faith.
I really wish you could backup backup's from WHS. You can attach an external drive and backup the shared dir's fairly easily, but it'd be nice if you could backup the PC backups too. Then I'd have it saved off in a completely detached place, safe from all harm. *shrug* oh well.
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So I clicked on the WHS icon and told it to do one "final" backup, and named it so. It's funny because the WHS screen where you can name the backup, they given an example of names you might give, and the example is "Backup before OS reinstall". So I guess they know that people do this pretty often.
I had then planned to wait until this weekend for the actual reinstall, so i'd have plenty of time and could go do other things around the house while I plodded through all the steps, but my internal RAID had different ideas (both our desktops have an internal RAID1). It had fairly regularly been deciding suddenly to rebuild, and once a couple months ago it actually said one of the hd's failed. This was the same thing....hd failed. Last time, I just removed the hd from the raid, then reinserted it, and it rebuilt and all was well. This time, it wasn't going to take it back no matter what.
I'm not completely convinced yet the drive itself is bad. While the RAID has saved me several times from a single disk failure...I'm beginning to wonder if the RAID was causing those failures in the first place.
Because I have WHS backing everything up every day, I've decided to finally rid myself of the RAID.
Now, the nice thing is that I *could* just convert the RAID to a normal single drive, and then restore the last backup from WHS, because the size would not have changed. However, since I was going to reinstall anyway, I just decided to move it up to last night. Meh, it doesn't take too long to update and patch.
While I was at it, it occured to me....once I've got the *BARE MINIMUM* stable install on the PC (all drivers up to date and loaded, all Windows updates applied, etc), I should once again back it up and name it. I will then have a saved copy of a clean reinstall, and so next time instead of formatting/reinstalling from the windows discs, I should just be able to do a restore from WHS. This is a very appealing idea, and only time will tell if it works or not. A big part of the plan supposes that a year from now when I'm looking to do a clean reinstall again, the WHS backup will still be there. I know I can go in and keep WHS from deleting it as part of its normal maintenance, but I mean just the idea that WHS will be stable and running for that long is kind of a leap of faith.
I really wish you could backup backup's from WHS. You can attach an external drive and backup the shared dir's fairly easily, but it'd be nice if you could backup the PC backups too. Then I'd have it saved off in a completely detached place, safe from all harm. *shrug* oh well.
This thread is not open. If you wish to respond, please respond using the original blog entry link. View the original blog entry
