Need Recommendation for Bare Metal Recovery

[Guest Dragon]

Hi,

 

We have many remote sites with small servers. I am looking for a solution to

make a daily backup of these server for bare metal recovery purposes. These

servers are non-critical and all their data is available from central

location. goal here not to provide fully redundent recovery but to speed up

recovery time. We can always get another server, and download all of the

informatiom from the central location. But if I have an expensive solution

(USB?) that I can plug into the server and simply restore the OS and

existing data from the device, it will make recovery faster than manually

installing OS and downloading data from the central.

 

It could be as simple a a USB drive/Flash key along with some inexpensive

software that provides complete backup (snapshot?) of a system and allows

you to restore it to a new server/hard disk. Cost is a major concern here.

 

Thank you.

[Guest Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Re: Need Recommendation for Bare Metal Recovery

 

 

"Dragon" <nospam@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:OeLXkIiHJHA.1160@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

> Hi,

>

> We have many remote sites with small servers. I am looking for a solution

> to make a daily backup of these server for bare metal recovery purposes.

> These servers are non-critical and all their data is available from

> central location. goal here not to provide fully redundent recovery but to

> speed up recovery time. We can always get another server, and download all

> of the informatiom from the central location. But if I have an expensive

> solution (USB?) that I can plug into the server and simply restore the OS

> and existing data from the device, it will make recovery faster than

> manually installing OS and downloading data from the central.

>

> It could be as simple a a USB drive/Flash key along with some inexpensive

> software that provides complete backup (snapshot?) of a system and allows

> you to restore it to a new server/hard disk. Cost is a major concern here.

>

> Thank you.

 

Convenience and cost usually run in opposite directions. If you want a

convenient and largely automated process then an imaging product such as

Acronis TrueImage would be your best bet. If you need to keep a lid on costs

then you should a Bart PE boot CD. Here is how it works:

 

a) To create an image:

- Plug in & format a USB disk.

- Boot the machine with a Bart PE boot CD.

- Use robocopy.exe to copy the whole system partition to the USB disk.

 

b) To perform a recovery:

- Boot the machine with a Bart PE boot CD.

- Partition & format the disk and mark the system partition active.

- Use robocopy.exe to copy the USB disk to the system partition.

 

If your USB disks are sufficiently large then you can copy several system

partitions to it, each into its own folder.

[Guest Dragon]

Re: Need Recommendation for Bare Metal Recovery

 

Thank you Pegasus.

I like the Acronis idea, I'll just have to see if I can get my budget to fit

around it or find something similar to do that same with a bit less expense.

 

I am thinking 16GB flash drive is more than enough for my use as the biggest

site with data has less than 6GB of total disk usage (including OS).

 

I have used the Bart CD but only for initial imaging of a system. If I am

going to get a Flash disk, then I rather have the image be updated on a

nightly basis. If I were to use Bart's disk, then I don't really need a

flash disk, I can simply get away with having an image on a DVD to load from

and have the DVD bootable as well.

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

"Pegasus (MVP)" <I.can@fly.com.oz> wrote in message

news:%23X2QTfiHJHA.728@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

>

> "Dragon" <nospam@hotmail.com> wrote in message

> news:OeLXkIiHJHA.1160@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

>> Hi,

>>

>> We have many remote sites with small servers. I am looking for a solution

>> to make a daily backup of these server for bare metal recovery purposes.

>> These servers are non-critical and all their data is available from

>> central location. goal here not to provide fully redundent recovery but

>> to speed up recovery time. We can always get another server, and download

>> all of the informatiom from the central location. But if I have an

>> expensive solution (USB?) that I can plug into the server and simply

>> restore the OS and existing data from the device, it will make recovery

>> faster than manually installing OS and downloading data from the central.

>>

>> It could be as simple a a USB drive/Flash key along with some inexpensive

>> software that provides complete backup (snapshot?) of a system and allows

>> you to restore it to a new server/hard disk. Cost is a major concern

>> here.

>>

>> Thank you.

>

> Convenience and cost usually run in opposite directions. If you want a

> convenient and largely automated process then an imaging product such as

> Acronis TrueImage would be your best bet. If you need to keep a lid on

> costs then you should a Bart PE boot CD. Here is how it works:

>

> a) To create an image:

> - Plug in & format a USB disk.

> - Boot the machine with a Bart PE boot CD.

> - Use robocopy.exe to copy the whole system partition to the USB disk.

>

> b) To perform a recovery:

> - Boot the machine with a Bart PE boot CD.

> - Partition & format the disk and mark the system partition active.

> - Use robocopy.exe to copy the USB disk to the system partition.

>

> If your USB disks are sufficiently large then you can copy several system

> partitions to it, each into its own folder.

>