Before you begin

Published: August 12, 2009

Applies To: Windows SBS 2008

Before you set up Windows Home Server to back up client computers in the Windows SBS 2008 network, consider the following:

  • Windows Home Server can back up computers that are running the following operating systems:

    • Windows 7 (including the 64-bit editions)

    • Windows Vista (including the 64-bit editions)

    • Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or later

    For more information about the operating systems that Windows Home Server can back up, see “Supported Operating Systems for Home Computers” (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=89784).

  • Windows Home Server can back up as many as 10 computers.

    If you need to back up more than 10 computers, you can run more than one server running Windows Home Server in the same network.

  • Windows Home Server must be on the same logical subnet as the client computers that it backs up.

    If you have multiple logical subnets, place a server that is running Windows Home Server on each logical subnet that has client computers that you want to back up.

  • To plan the capacity that you need for your storage, consider the following:

    • You can monitor and add additional storage by using the Server Storage tab on the Windows Home Server console.

    • Windows Home Server uses a single instance backup strategy, which means that it does not store multiple backups of identical data from multiple client computers.

    • Begin with at least two internal hard drives, with the primary (system) drive having at least 300 GB.

    • You can expand the storage as follows:

      • Internal hard drive technologies (such as SATA or SCSI): Add additional internal hard drives, or connect them by using external connectors such as eSATA connectors.

      • External hard drive technologies: Add USB 2.0 hard drives or FireWire (IEEE 1394) hard drives.

    For more information about expanding the storage, see the Windows Home Server Drive Extender technical brief (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=148554).

    For more information about how Windows Home Server Backup is implemented, see “How Backup Is Implemented” (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=144340).

  • You cannot restore backups to dissimilar hardware.

  • Windows Home Server has a Remote Access feature that you can configure through the Settings tab on the Windows Home Server console. But you should leave this turned off and continue to use Windows SBS 2008 Remote Web Workplace for remote access. If you turn on Windows Home Server Remote Access, it attempts to re-configure your router and it interferes with your current settings so that Windows SBS 2008 Remote Web Workplace stops working.

  • Do not join the server that is running Windows Home Server to the Windows SBS 2008 domain.

  • Do not use Windows Home Server to store files. Your users may be confused if they can store files in two separate places.

    You can discourage users from using Windows Home Server to store files by disabling access to shared folders. To disable access to shared folders, do the following:

    • Delete the desktop shortcut for the Windows Home Server shared folder from the client computer.

    • Do not create any user accounts in Windows Home Server.

    • Remove all existing shared folders.

  • Windows Home Server runs a user name and password synchronization check to ensure that user names and passwords match on the home server and the client computers. In a home environment, this makes it easier for client computers to access the shared folders on the home server. In a small business environment, these checks are not necessary and you can ignore the notifications for them. As implemented in this article, the home server is not used as a file server for your client computers.

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Community Content

Myron Johnson
Beware: WHS does NOT back up redirected "My Documents" folder
Because WHS does not back up "Client side cache folders", if you redirect your User's "My Documents" folder (very common when using an SBS server), there will be NO backups of those folders in WHS. The ability to restore old versions of "My Documents" will be limited to whatever conventional backups you have of your SBS server or wherever you are redirecting your User's "My Documents" folder.

If Users are normally limited to a single PC, you'll have a lot more "previous versions" options if you leave their "My Documents" folder on their local PC, allowing WHS backups of that data.
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Still Grey
Initial Hard Drive

Windows Home Server will actualy create a 20 gb system partition on the first drive and alocate the rest for storage for backups. There is no advantage to having 2 or more hard drives when the WHS is being used for backups only. Simply start with the largest drive you can afford at the time. (as in 1tb is fine).

Side note: Again, WHS uses single instance storage, so only one copy of a unique cluster is stored in the backup database so is is very space conservative. I have a site with 3 Vista Business boxes and the PC Backups are using 36gb. All of the "data" is normaly stored and backed up on the SBS server

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Daniel P - IT business owner
Backup the SBS using WHS
I have a small network, 6 servers and 3 workstations, 5 servers are virtualized, the other is the WHS box. recently after installing a well known AV package, it broke all of my servers. 2 days trying to repair... ended up reinstalling a DNS / DHCP server, and using the restore disc restored SBS 2008, Server 2008 Web edition+SQL web edition, Server 2003 R2, Win 7 ult x64.

anyway my point is... I've restored systems that are not supported using whs, it's a perfect backup solution - almost.

you must have a DNS and DHCP server running and accessable for the restore disc... restoring SBS 2008 is the issue, as it's the DNS / DHCP... get past that... then every other server was able to be restored !



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