Home System Backup in a Windows World

8. Run a backup job: An individual backup can be started immediately. Each manual run requires a text description that will be used to differentiate this job from other backups. For example, if a backup will be performed prior to installing an application, the name can be "Before Installation." Giving a generic non-descriptive name will make it difficult to later find the correct backup file to restore from.

When the backup job is started, the systray icon will change colors to blue (from green, for healthy) to indicate it is performing a backup. Rolling over the icon displays what percentage of the backup has been completed. It's not necessary to keep the console open during the backup since there will be nothing on the console to indicate the job is in progress. When the job completes, the systray icon will change back to green and the machine status under Computers & Backup will read "Backed up." Depending on the size of the backup, this can take a while.

Later backups will be shorter than the first one because Windows Home Server looks at the clusters and backs up only the files that have changed. In addition, if the same file exists on two different machines, Windows Home Server stores just one copy on the server (and thus saves disk space), but lists the file in the backup for both machines.

9. Browsing the Backup History: Double clicking on the machine name will open a dialog box listing all the backups that have been performed for that machine. Along with the history, this window gives the option to manage and restore backups.

For management, each backup has three options: manage automatically, keep or delete. Selecting the backup to be managed automatically subjects it to the rules defined in Settings. Keeping the backup just means the automatic management rules do not apply and that backup is kept indefinitely. Selecting the backup to delete means it will be deleted next Sunday, regardless of how new it is.

10. Looking inside a backup: Selecting Details from this window opens up the details window for the highlighted backup file. The window indicates when the backup was performed and how long it took. The files and directories that had been excluded from the backup are listed. A small icon at the top also indicates whether this backup is being managed automatically.

To look inside the backup file to see all the individual files, click on Open.

11. Restoring from backup: Restoring is as easy as click and drag. Clicking on Open from the backup detail view will launch the file viewer with all the files that had been saved. After browsing the directory tree, files and folders can be dragged from the view to any location on the local computer.

12. Restoring an entire computer: In case of a machine failure, Windows Home Server can also be used to restore an entire computer. The second CD that ships with the Windows Home Server is a Home Computer Restore CD. Insert the restore CD into the CD drive for the home computer and wait for the machine to boot up. The computer will automatically connect to the server and find a previous backup of that particular machine. Using a simple wizard, data can be restored for all the hard drives that had been backed up. This is a vote against excluding too many directories when configuring the backup. The restore will copy back only the information that had been backed up " all the other information in the excluded directories would remain lost.

13. Modify storage sizes: When you add a second drive, Windows Home Server allows folder duplication to automatically store copies of the files in that folder on multiple drives. The system offers the benefits of RAID without the headaches of setting it up.

Regardless of how many drives are formatted and attached to the server, they appear as one single storage device. Unlike RAID, the drives don't have to be the same kind or size.

Adding a drive is simple, whether it's internal or external. First, physically attach the new storage device (internal installation, USB, etc.) to the server. Boot up the server with the new drives and then launch Windows Home Server Console from a client machine. Click on the Server Storage tab where the new devices would be identified as a Non-storage Hard Drive. At this point, the drive can be formatted by clicking on Add on the menu. Once it is formatted, the drive's capacity is added to the total storage pool.

Before removing a drive, for whatever reason, it should be removed from the Console first. The removal process may take a few hours, but it can be physically removed only after Windows Home Server has stopped looking at that drive.

The server's storage requirements would gradually increase as more machines are added to the network and backups are maintained for longer periods of time. Making it easy to expand storage capacity is one form of future-proofing for a backup appliance because it will be able to accommodate the increased amount of data that needs to be saved.