Add more storage / upgrade storage SOLVED

Server
1

Hello All,

I would like to know if it’s possible to add more storage in urbackup server using windows enniveroment.
Backup drvie is almost full and now days I have to manual delete backups to get some free space.

Is there any way I can add …?

Thank you

2

UrBackup is generally quite efficient if you have started with a good amount of backup space and proper settings. Changing the backup storage can be done, but you need to be sure you really need more space and not just better use of the existing space or you will be doing this again and again.

First, be sure you have set the Global soft file system quota appropriately for your environment. (8.1.14 in the Administration Manual) 90% is a good starting point for many systems, 95% is OK if you have more than 8TB of backup storage. This should be set as high as possible, but not so high that individual backups fail between automatic cleanup or Windows gets into trouble from running out of space.

Second, verify your backup selections are set to only what needs to be backed up, and does not include temporary files or automatically downloaded updates such as virus definitions. UrBackup uses Windows list of files to exclude as much as possible, but this generic list does not know about your specific needs. Add unneeded folders to the default or client exclude list.

Third, run cleanup.bat from the UrBackup Server program directory and check app.log for errors and reasons it could not delete old backups from specific clients. Use that information to adjust the Minimum number of … backups in Client Settings to keep fewer copies, especially of image backups which may not benefit from deduplication under Windows.

Lastly, if you can use Windows to enlarge the backup drive or third-party tools to copy the backup disk to a larger one, and can keep the same (8.1.1) Backup storage path, then UrBackup will automatically make use of the added space.

If you need to change the backup location, see Section 10.8 to migrate backup storage to a different drive. Look in this forum for that topic as additional details are discussed.

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AFAIK, you normally can’t do that under windows. furthermore adding space by concataining a disk would be less than ideal. your best best is actually to get a larger drive, copy the files over and remap the drives…

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Yes, there’s a lot omitted in the reference to “Windows” because learning how to use the operating system is off topic for this forum. I disagree that concatenating drives is as evil as has been claimed. With a single drive you are still one drive away from total loss of data, and drive reliability is high enough that a backup instance, as opposed to a legally-mandated archive system, can tolerate failure of the storage. Remember best practice is never to depend on a single backup copy or a single location for backups. I try to extend that to multiple backup software/methods as well. Trusting any single method because you’ve been told it is the best way is also “less than ideal.”

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You’ll need to research how on other sites, but look into the Windows storage spaces or dynamic disk options. It’s certainly possible to configure multiple physical disks as a single volume using Windows to handle it. Dynamic disks have been around a long time (since win2k) but have never been popular, the setup does, however, work I’ve used it in the past. Storage spaces is more recent, apparently can do what you want, but I’ve not used that myself & it may only be available with “pro” or server editions, being one of those “enterprise” type things, I’m merely a hobbyist & haven’t had need to investigate.

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Thank you guys for your input.

Yeah GLOBAL Soft file qoute is 90%

They only do file backups for certian directory from all clients (Desktop, documents) that’s it, and what I don’t need it’s excluded already

I haven’t tried cleanup.bat I’ll give it a go and check log. ,(good idea)

Thank you I’m familer with this

Thanks Don_wright

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That what I did last time, upgarding from 4tb to 8tb, but I was hoping for may be better method.

Thank you

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Hi All,

I managed to upgrade the storage size without any issue. followed a few steps

My Setup.

Windows environment:

  1. Make sure you have the latest backup in your OLD backup drive (just to be in the safe side)

  2. Stop urbackup server services

  3. Make sure your new (bigger HDD/s) placed on the same or in different machine

  4. I used Hardlinks to copy data from old to new HDD. options I used (hardlink + preserve links are recreated at the backup set the original links structure will be preserved)

  5. When all data is copied, just change the drive letter. or (change setting the backup destination)

For me, it took about a 4 days to copy all the data to a new place.

now it all works fine.

Thanks all for their inputs.