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Hello: I need some advise on if something is possible. Here is the Scenario...

I have a Co-Located Windows 2008R2 DC Edition server in chicago (far from me) so I only can access it via RDC. It has 1 TB drive as the main drive and another 1 TB drive that is just Storage. They both ar 98% free.

The machine hosts all my domains and sites as well as many of my Apps. So losing this to hard drive crash or Hackers is devestating and also downtime of at least a week.

I used Norton Ghost in the past to make images in my office, but has anyone made exact images on a colocated server? If you have some advise please on which software you used? did you do it via a IP KVM ? (my hosting company will turn on a IPKVP for me on request so I can monitor the whole boot process or do anything I need to at boot level)

So I basically want to create an image of the entire drive and store it directly on the Storage Drive, (it has more than enough room).. In case any thing is wrong or the whole server goes down, I can instantly reimage the drive and be up and running in 2 hours.

so from the server expert here at Server Fault, is it even possible to do what I want... or is it out of the question?

Also, in case I could do this....is there any issues in Restoring? Do I need my CD-ROM drive for any reason?

thank you in advance for your time.

DC

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2  
What is "DC edition?" – MDMarra Sep 24 '10 at 3:41
I assume he means Datacenter edition. – Nic Sep 24 '10 at 4:05
You do have backups in an alternative way? – Joris Sep 24 '10 at 6:18
@Nic - Ah, makes sense – MDMarra Sep 24 '10 at 14:33
Either you're misusing the term "co-location" or you've overlooked the fact that you will still have the primary site of the co-located one goes down. – John Gardeniers Oct 20 '10 at 2:56

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

It's a little late to do now since your machine is up and running but next time you should consider using vdisks to install to.

Basically you install 2008 R2 to a single VHD file on your boot drive and then copy that file (via xcopy etc.) to your backup drive. A great feature of this setup is that you can use differencing drives which are kind of like a snapshot for hardware.

Best of all everything you need is available for free from Microsoft as part of the WAIK toolkit.

Here's a link to how to set it up: Virtual Hard Disks in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7

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up vote 0 down vote

I have used Acronis for live OS backups in Windows 2003 Server and Fling to copy them offsite on ftp server.
Another option I see is to use the built in system imaging:
1. Click Start
2. In the Search box, type Backup and Restore, and then press ENTER.
3. In the left panel, click Create a system image.
4. Select second HDD.
5. Click Start Backup to start the backup process.

The image can be copied offsite or the another HDD.

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Thanks for this answer. I never knew that Backup and Restore was included on the computers now. On Windows 2008 its called Windows Server Backup and I had to add it as a Feature....easy. its backing up now. lets see how it goes. – DevCompany Sep 25 '10 at 4:04
I could not find the technet article earlier, but, now I could: technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee849849%28WS.10%29.aspx – Paul Sep 25 '10 at 5:08

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