John Bartow
john at winhaven.net
Tue Jan 12 21:52:53 CST 2010
Steve, >> It's fairly obvious that 1. the company they hired to supply the hardware and install the system this system Or << Doesn't look like you finished your thought, there, pardner! --Bad writing is all ;) "did not do their job well." >> If their server has a quality RAID system... << That appears to be debatable. What I was confused by was that the guys who installed the server (which took a HELL of a long time to do...formatting the RAID array took something like 12 hours on-site. They didn't have the smarts to do that at their shop!) speced out such a small RAID array...I believe it's only 70 GB. The 500 GB data drive doesn't have its own RAID array. Why they couldn't have made a RAID array to provide 500 GB is beyond me. I can't believe that they RECOMMENDED it. How is the business owner supposed to know? --Considering how new this is it is hard to believe they installed 70GB drives! They also speced out only 4 GB of RAM. My old network admin had Janet's boss buy another 8 GB right away and that fixed some of the performance issues. --I think having this guy help out Janet at some cost is worth it. They will probably trust him in the future because what he has done so far has given them reason to. I think that Janet has tried to get reliable image backups with so many different versions of Casper and Acronis now, that she's run into the problem of the VSS being hosed because of Acronis and not being able to completely uninstall it. --I hate it when that happens. If you can, go in and scrub Acronis out of the system files and registry and then repair VSS. Is Acronis not willing to help? This all makes Janet very crabby at times. --Can't blame her for that. I simply fail to see why such a small server should have so many backup problems. There's something going on here that the various software support folks just aren't touching. That is, Casper and Acronis. --To tell truth it sounds like they got screwed by the hardware people right from the get-go. Did they custom build this server? Did your old network guy mention anything about non-standard hardware? Mind sending me the name of who did this (offlist) so I never waste my time meeting with them about sub-contracting? I recently picked up a new client that had previously been sold a "server" that was little more than a cheap PC kit from a mail order catalog. Piece of crap. It went down and I temporarily replaced it with a used Dell Dimension (it was all I had on hand) that I had that was ready to be scrapped while waiting for their new server. The Dell ran their system better! Steve Erbach Neenah, WI On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 12:05 PM, John Bartow <john at winhaven.net> wrote: > Steve, > My comments: > A server of this magnitude should be comprised of a RAID system that is > capable of recovering from on HD failure without hassle. > > Acronis has a version specifically for SBS. SBS has a lot of things going > on > that workstations and regular server does not. > > While I agree that having a bootable image backup is a great idea, I also > think that if the imaging idea is not working out then move on and depend > on > the RAID to be your HD disaster recovery method. Regular backups are mostly > for file recovery and, in lieu of an image backup, should probably only be > considered useful for that. Most backup apps include a disaster recovery > option where they can be booted from removal media and rebuild the system > from the backups. > > <soapbox> > I realize this is post mortem but the planning for a server/client/network > is the number one most important part. It's fairly obvious that > 1. the company they hired to supply the hardware and install the system > this > system > Or > 2. if they did, the person who made the decision to not follow their > recommendations > did not do their job well. > > I feel Janet's (and your vicarious) pain on this :o( > <off soapbox> > > So in conclusion: > If there the server has a quality RAID system and you can't get Acronis SBS > version to operate effectively - give up on the imaging and move to a more > simple file backup system. SBS has one built in. I wish I could stop in and > make it all better for Janet! Best of luck my friend! > > _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com