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Context:

I own a Windows Server 2008 in my office, and a WD My Cloud NAS at home.

Currently, I am using the WD sync software to sync up a backup folder, which contains all the files (more or less OS files I don't have access to).

I am aware a files backup is not intended for a system restore, so I also run a local server backup, on incremental mode. The OS drive is also on raid 0, so local data loss is possible, but unlikely.

However, in case of a fire/theft/flood/whatever happens, I would like to have that backup synced to my home NAS.

Question:

  • Is there a way to create incremental backups such that they do not overwrite themselves? The current backup is a daily, 100GB in size backup, including 2 large files: 57, 42 GB, that I can not sync over internet.
  • Is there a better method I should use to remotely backup my server with as few as possible daily GB going over internet? (like, except for the initial backup)
Amit
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    Use windows backup role on a usb disk, and bring the disk at home each week to exchange it ? – yagmoth555 Jan 25 '17 at 20:30
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    @yagmoth555 Indeed, that is a way to do it, however, at some point I will get more and more lazy, and neglect it, which I am not interested in. I'm looking to automate this – Amit Jan 25 '17 at 20:31
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    Can you do a DFS in the NAS ? You could do a incremental backup schedule that dump the file in a folder X, and the folder X is synced by DFS with the bandwidth policy you give him via a vpn tunnel. – yagmoth555 Jan 25 '17 at 20:48
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    @yagmoth555 I believe I can. However, with the maximum internet upload speed provided by the IPS, I can not transfer 100gb a day. I am pretty solid on the transfer way, but unaware of a way to save me the 100 a day, and just have incremental system backup – Amit Jan 25 '17 at 20:51
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    well, kinda why my idea was more you use a local disk on your server to dump a incremental backup, like with wbadmin, you sync that folder in big with the dfs. for your question #1, seen it, wbadmin can do incremental backup if it use a local disk of the server, just add the Backup role to your server – yagmoth555 Jan 25 '17 at 20:58

1 Answers1

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For the case, it seems to be useful to mention 3-2-1 rule that should be used for planning Backup strategy.

Since you want to have a full backup of Windows Server 2008 to be able to restore the entire system in case of any issue, I would suggest you virtualize your server and deploy/run its VM on virtual block level storage with the ability to replicate it to your home NAS.

As hypervisor, you can go either with Hyper-V free (Windows Server 2012 R2/2016) or VMware ESXi Free. As for block storage replication, you can go with iSCSI storage. WD My Cloud NAS can be connected to the local home host as iSCSI storage.

Once that is done you can go with either StarWind Virtual SAN or HPE VSA that can provide block level storage on top of your physical server and NAS with asynchronous replication functionality to build data transmission from WS2008 VM to home NAS. Asynchronous replication can work with low network bandwidth.

Once a full backup of is done, you would not need to backup 100GB each time. Asynchronous replication would replicate only data blocks that was changed in planned time (StarWind works so, for example). Also, you can schedule replication between hosts in order to automate the process.

Mr. Raspberry
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