How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app
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@krisleslie said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
Dustin's more genuis than I am lol! We ran into some serioush issues with my install. So I'm gonna come back and revisit the best practices cause I untimately want to use a USB to install XS to and then have XO as a VM so it can help out with backups.
I think even @scottalanmiller has back peddled on install XS on USB. Might want to just weigh the options there
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@Dashrender said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@krisleslie said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
Dustin's more genuis than I am lol! We ran into some serioush issues with my install. So I'm gonna come back and revisit the best practices cause I untimately want to use a USB to install XS to and then have XO as a VM so it can help out with backups.
I think even @scottalanmiller has back peddled on install XS on USB. Might want to just weigh the options there
I think if you do it the way we suggest now, it's OK.
Though it is not technically supported by Citrix if you ever want support.
TBH I am still on the fence what I would do if doing things over.
The one thing is that XS is pretty easy to recover from a boot failure, as you saw first hand. (IF you have the metadata backed up which I think you did not, correct?)
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@Dashrender said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@krisleslie said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
Dustin's more genuis than I am lol! We ran into some serioush issues with my install. So I'm gonna come back and revisit the best practices cause I untimately want to use a USB to install XS to and then have XO as a VM so it can help out with backups.
I think even @scottalanmiller has back peddled on install XS on USB. Might want to just weigh the options there
Yeah, it's still a good method for deployment, but it is not for the faint of heart. It requires a bit of work that isn't solidly documented yet.
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@BRRABill said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@Dashrender said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@krisleslie said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
Dustin's more genuis than I am lol! We ran into some serioush issues with my install. So I'm gonna come back and revisit the best practices cause I untimately want to use a USB to install XS to and then have XO as a VM so it can help out with backups.
I think even @scottalanmiller has back peddled on install XS on USB. Might want to just weigh the options there
I think if you do it the way we suggest now, it's OK.
Though it is not technically supported by Citrix if you ever want support.
TBH I am still on the fence what I would do if doing things over.
The one thing is that XS is pretty easy to recover from a boot failure, as you saw first hand. (IF you have the metadata backed up which I think you did not, correct?)
Correct I did not. But I was still able to recover manually. Sucked but was doable.
and you're right - if you push the logs out and don't save them locally, you should be fine on USB. I'd be surprised if Citrix wouldn't support you because of that change.
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@Dashrender said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@BRRABill said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@Dashrender said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@krisleslie said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
Dustin's more genuis than I am lol! We ran into some serioush issues with my install. So I'm gonna come back and revisit the best practices cause I untimately want to use a USB to install XS to and then have XO as a VM so it can help out with backups.
I think even @scottalanmiller has back peddled on install XS on USB. Might want to just weigh the options there
I think if you do it the way we suggest now, it's OK.
Though it is not technically supported by Citrix if you ever want support.
TBH I am still on the fence what I would do if doing things over.
The one thing is that XS is pretty easy to recover from a boot failure, as you saw first hand. (IF you have the metadata backed up which I think you did not, correct?)
Correct I did not. But I was still able to recover manually. Sucked but was doable.
and you're right - if you push the logs out and don't save them locally, you should be fine on USB. I'd be surprised if Citrix wouldn't support you because of that change.
Yeah, that would be an odd reason to not accept your money for support.
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@scottalanmiller said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@Dashrender said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@BRRABill said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@Dashrender said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@krisleslie said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
Dustin's more genuis than I am lol! We ran into some serioush issues with my install. So I'm gonna come back and revisit the best practices cause I untimately want to use a USB to install XS to and then have XO as a VM so it can help out with backups.
I think even @scottalanmiller has back peddled on install XS on USB. Might want to just weigh the options there
I think if you do it the way we suggest now, it's OK.
Though it is not technically supported by Citrix if you ever want support.
TBH I am still on the fence what I would do if doing things over.
The one thing is that XS is pretty easy to recover from a boot failure, as you saw first hand. (IF you have the metadata backed up which I think you did not, correct?)
Correct I did not. But I was still able to recover manually. Sucked but was doable.
and you're right - if you push the logs out and don't save them locally, you should be fine on USB. I'd be surprised if Citrix wouldn't support you because of that change.
Yeah, that would be an odd reason to not accept your money for support.
Depends how stickler-ey they are.
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@scottalanmiller constantly says that vendors can't refuse support to you when you have third party HDDs and RAM installed in their servers.
So I don't really see this being that different. Is it possible they could refuse you? Sure, likely, doesn't seem likely.
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@Dashrender said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@scottalanmiller constantly says that vendors can't refuse support to you when you have third party HDDs and RAM installed in their servers.
So I don't really see this being that different. Is it possible they could refuse you? Sure, likely, doesn't seem likely.
Well, they can't REFUSE you, but they can easily say "yeah, this is all caused by you writing to USB" or "yeah, this is caused by those EDGE drives"
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@BRRABill said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@Dashrender said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@scottalanmiller constantly says that vendors can't refuse support to you when you have third party HDDs and RAM installed in their servers.
So I don't really see this being that different. Is it possible they could refuse you? Sure, likely, doesn't seem likely.
Well, they can't REFUSE you, but they can easily say "yeah, this is all caused by you writing to USB" or "yeah, this is caused by those EDGE drives"
@scottalanmiller - comment?
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@Dashrender said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@BRRABill said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@Dashrender said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@scottalanmiller constantly says that vendors can't refuse support to you when you have third party HDDs and RAM installed in their servers.
So I don't really see this being that different. Is it possible they could refuse you? Sure, likely, doesn't seem likely.
Well, they can't REFUSE you, but they can easily say "yeah, this is all caused by you writing to USB" or "yeah, this is caused by those EDGE drives"
@scottalanmiller - comment?
DELL was actually willing to work through a lot more with me than I thought they would when I had the EDGE drives. But ultimately, they can only help to the drives because they aren't DELL drives.
@scottalanmiller will say ... if you buy a DELL, buy DELL stuff, I am betting
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I've worked with other vendors who will support their product if you have other hardware present, but they can't support that other hardware if it isn't theirs. So, if you have a hard drive that wasn't from them, they aren't going to support that hard drive. If it's plausible that the issue lies on the hard drive, they're going straight to that and pointing the finger at the manufacturer of the hard drive. Path of least resistance.
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Seems to me that the industry should want to support the USB adoption of hypervisor installs as a mandatory thing. I see it being easier to recover from and not waste precious hdd space.
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@krisleslie said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
Seems to me that the industry should want to support the USB adoption of hypervisor installs as a mandatory thing. I see it being easier to recover from and not waste precious hdd space.
I think that you'll find that that never catches on. People doing that are purely in the "Free" space and not of any value for vendors to support. And vendors don't want to encourage bad behaviour - that's why XenServer officially doesn't support software RAID and VMware won't support it period, official or not, it just doesn't exist. Because they want to define a baseline of what good looks like and push customers to set up their environments properly. Helping them to cut corners makes it easier for things to fail and people to blame the hypervisor instead of finding where the fault really lies.
So while you can do USB backups and restores, no one has a reason to want to make it easy. It's not good for the vendors and it is not good for you. USB backups are high touch, high effort, high risk.
Instead of using USB drives, get a small NAS device like ReadyNAS, Synology or ioSafe. Two 6TB WD Red drives in RAID 1. Attach over the network. It's cheap and so much better. Now you can restore without needing to be physically present. Now you can manage your backups all the time. Now you can safely schedule. Now you can connect to more than one device at a time.
Using USB Drives for backing up your servers really falls below the home line and all of the vendors, across the board, have a strong interest in protecting their customers from the availability of that option. What that means is - if bad ideas exist, managers might choose them no matter how much IT warns against it. But if the option does not exist, it keeps IT from having to explain why it is a bad idea.
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@krisleslie said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
Seems to me that the industry should want to support the USB adoption of hypervisor installs as a mandatory thing. I see it being easier to recover from and not waste precious hdd space.
Industry has the primary focus of making money, not adopting technology. When a company develops new technology, it's with the goal of using that to make more money. If there is a new product, it means that you don't have it already, so they can sell it to you. A company that adopts new technology is likely losing money, unless it makes their product more desirable... so that they will sell more of it. If the "level of sales going up" is not greater than the cost and bother of adopting and supporting a new technology, what's in it for them?
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@art_of_shred said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@krisleslie said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
Seems to me that the industry should want to support the USB adoption of hypervisor installs as a mandatory thing. I see it being easier to recover from and not waste precious hdd space.
Industry has the primary focus of making money, not adopting technology. When a company develops new technology, it's with the goal of using that to make more money. If there is a new product, it means that you don't have it already, so they can sell it to you. A company that adopts new technology is likely losing money, unless it makes their product more desirable... so that they will sell more of it. If the "level of sales going up" is not greater than the cost and bother of adopting and supporting a new technology, what's in it for them?
Especially, as is in this case, a technology that is there naturally but is blocked or removed. It was there previously, and everyone took it out. For example, Xen does this, XenServer does not. XS makes sure not to expose this easily because they are trying to push people to better, simpler systems that are easier to support - everyone wins.
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@scottalanmiller said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@art_of_shred said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@krisleslie said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
Seems to me that the industry should want to support the USB adoption of hypervisor installs as a mandatory thing. I see it being easier to recover from and not waste precious hdd space.
Industry has the primary focus of making money, not adopting technology. When a company develops new technology, it's with the goal of using that to make more money. If there is a new product, it means that you don't have it already, so they can sell it to you. A company that adopts new technology is likely losing money, unless it makes their product more desirable... so that they will sell more of it. If the "level of sales going up" is not greater than the cost and bother of adopting and supporting a new technology, what's in it for them?
blah, blah - everyone wins.
...except the guy who wants to use his USB storage.
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@art_of_shred said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@scottalanmiller said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@art_of_shred said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@krisleslie said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
Seems to me that the industry should want to support the USB adoption of hypervisor installs as a mandatory thing. I see it being easier to recover from and not waste precious hdd space.
Industry has the primary focus of making money, not adopting technology. When a company develops new technology, it's with the goal of using that to make more money. If there is a new product, it means that you don't have it already, so they can sell it to you. A company that adopts new technology is likely losing money, unless it makes their product more desirable... so that they will sell more of it. If the "level of sales going up" is not greater than the cost and bother of adopting and supporting a new technology, what's in it for them?
blah, blah - everyone wins.
...except the guy who wants to use his USB storage.
I use USB drives, but they're for my offsite backups, not the primary backup devices.
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I think he meant installing the OS to USB.
Also, you never answered the question @Dashrender asked. We have a bet on your answer.
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@art_of_shred said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@scottalanmiller said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@art_of_shred said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@krisleslie said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
Seems to me that the industry should want to support the USB adoption of hypervisor installs as a mandatory thing. I see it being easier to recover from and not waste precious hdd space.
Industry has the primary focus of making money, not adopting technology. When a company develops new technology, it's with the goal of using that to make more money. If there is a new product, it means that you don't have it already, so they can sell it to you. A company that adopts new technology is likely losing money, unless it makes their product more desirable... so that they will sell more of it. If the "level of sales going up" is not greater than the cost and bother of adopting and supporting a new technology, what's in it for them?
blah, blah - everyone wins.
...except the guy who wants to use his USB storage.
Even that guy.
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@travisdh1 said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@art_of_shred said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@scottalanmiller said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@art_of_shred said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
@krisleslie said in How to recover system image from Windows 7 using the backup & restore app:
Seems to me that the industry should want to support the USB adoption of hypervisor installs as a mandatory thing. I see it being easier to recover from and not waste precious hdd space.
Industry has the primary focus of making money, not adopting technology. When a company develops new technology, it's with the goal of using that to make more money. If there is a new product, it means that you don't have it already, so they can sell it to you. A company that adopts new technology is likely losing money, unless it makes their product more desirable... so that they will sell more of it. If the "level of sales going up" is not greater than the cost and bother of adopting and supporting a new technology, what's in it for them?
blah, blah - everyone wins.
...except the guy who wants to use his USB storage.
I use USB drives, but they're for my offsite backups, not the primary backup devices.
If you are backing up to most small NAS units directly, you can attach a USB drive to that and do a backup of the backup for offiste. That's a good (better at least) place to have that kind of technology.
