Customer has a WD Mybook for a SBS 2008 server backup

[TAPtech]

Hi guys,

A new customer of mine (my first really good one!) asked me to come in to "scan" their network. I was a bit unsure of what they were asking me to do so I headed down to see the owner in person. We went over a bunch of issues that he was having, mainly with reliability. So he asks me to just check the server to see "how bad it looks."

So i go into the server room (hot closet) which is just riddled with cables and wires and gear. Log onto the server, it is SBS 2008, and man does it have some issues. No backups configured, DHCP service crashes, 4% OS disk space left, using 90% of RAM, etc.

One of the issues is that someone along the line bought a Western Digital MyBook NAS intended to be a server backup. I have configured a wbadmin script to backup to this drive nightly, however it does not seem to be the right way to do things. I made the backup as soon as i could because the last one was a year old!

The owner mentioned that he would gladly have me get the proper gear, but I'm wondering if you guys think the WD NAS drive would be alright? I'm leaning towards a directly connected USB set up.

 

[pc-quebec]

Using a NAS as back up don't protect from fire and robbery , back up as to be made outside the premise or bring in another location , what I like to do is to use external enclosure with laptop HD inside, it's cheap you can have 2 or more of them and make a rotation. I like to use Goodsync to do the back up. Goodsync will analyse and copy only the files that have been change, so it take only few minutes a day. Now you don't purchase the expensice Goodsync for server, you use the one for Desktop and made the back up from the deskto. I don't use it to back up the server OS, just the company folders.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Most of my sites I use Backupassist and eSata or USB 3 external drives that I rotate out. At least 3 but often 5 if they will pay for it.

But you need to get a replacement server for them. 4% free space is a disaster waiting to happen. I bet this server is only a paired set of mirror drives and that will be a performance dog. Need separate raid stacks for OS and data.

 

[TAPtech]

Thank you both for the input.

The server is a bit dated, Dell T300. The OS is on a 250GB drive, partitioned with data on it as well. It looks like active directory is on this spindle.

There is a DELL SCSI array listed as well as the 250GB drive with the OS.

There is plenty of available space for data, but the OS partition is suffering with the ~5% free space.

I like the idea of keeping the data offsite. The owner asked about this possibility before I mentioned it, and questioned about Carbonite. They will need to backup about 100GB of data so it might be more cost effective for me to just maintain their data at my location.

 

[TAPtech]

I was able to free up quite a bit of OS disc space by moving the paging file to another drive, as well as moving WSUS.

I see why I have DHCP service crashes. There is a Linksys SRW2024 switch, I beleive that the DHCP is enabled in the switch and SBS is detecting this. The strange this is that DHCP does run on the server and stops intermitantly. None of the workstations or devices seem to be affected.

I imagine this means that the linksys switch is handing out IP adresses and I should simply disable the dhcp service on the server.

I am having some difficulty as the "other IT guy" is outta there and obtaining passwords is tricky!

 

[krtechsolutions]

never seen a switch hand out IPs, i would bet its the router handing out IPS.

my personally I would make the server the dhcp server and stop whatever is currently the DHCP server.

 

[TAPtech]

I agree with the sbs2008 as a dhcp server instead of the router. I need to download some more information on the Linksys switch / router. Maybe it is a router but I beleive it is just a switch. Or perhaps a switch with some bad DHCP capabilities!

I ran a DHCP "sniffer" program for rogue dhcp servers and it did not find any thing. Now i'm just confused.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

The srw2024 is a basic managed switch, not a router. It has no DHCP service.

Probably crashed because the system volume was chock full..the DHCP database can corrupt. SBS is also notorious for losing its licensing when the system drive becomes chock full.

If there is another DHCP service...should be easy to find...first check is the router of the network..which itself should be easy to find and take 30 second to log into the web interface and confirm.

Also be very clear about properly setting up the antivirus exclusions...and file types. Many people just do some default antivirus install on SBS and walk away. This nearly guarantees a problematic server over time. I have a long thread around here somewhere about antivirus setup on a server. Such a corrupting the DHCP database.

Is this just one 250 gig drive? Yikes..yuck. 250 makes me think SATA drive, and SBS on just 1 spindle...a desktop drive spindle...wow. She's not gonna be a ball of fire. What size is the system partition? WSUS and user shares and infostore defaulted to that C drive? If so..highly recommend moving them to the second partition.

 

[TAPtech]

I still am unsure of the drive configuration as I have not been in the case yet. Dell service tag shows it came with two 250gb drives. I see one volume as 250gb with 3 partitions. Another volume of 1TB with two partitions. The owner mentioned that the "other guy" was supposed to have set up a raid configuration.

I can't access the server until next week but do have remote access configured. Does anyone know if there is a DELL utility to inspect the raid configuration through software? This is a dell t300.

As far as AV, it has kapersky and windows firewall is disabled. Uh oh!

OS partition is 60GB and now has 8GB free. A good increase from 411MB!

With that much usage, does it sound like AD or Exchange might be on that partition?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

A 250 gig volume and a 1 TB volume...so the server probably has 4x physical drives installed...a pair of 250 in RAID 1 and a pair of 1tb in RAID 1. So you have 2x spindles...which is better...you want a pagefile spanning on each spindle. By the size..probably SATA...which isn't so good...but oh well.

Why the 250 gig is broken into 3x partitions..dunno, wierd. Really no advantage to extra partitions if there are 2x volumes/spindles.

Windows firewall disabled is fine..s'long as the server is behind a NAT router.

Dell OpenManage is the web based application to manage your servers on the hardware level...including the RAID controller.

 

[TAPtech]

According to the service tag, the machine was originally sent with two 250GB drives. I'll assume they were mirrored. The extra TB came later, probably another mirrored set but I really won't know until I dig in deeper.

The server is sitting behind a Sonicwall.

OpenManage, thats it! Thank you for the info!

 

[tankman1989]

According to the service tag, the machine was originally sent with two 250GB drives. I'll assume they were mirrored. The extra TB came later, probably another mirrored set but I really won't know until I dig in deeper.

The server is sitting behind a Sonicwall.

OpenManage, thats it! Thank you for the info!

You should be able to tell if the 1TB is a mirrored array from the Computer Management console, unless it is running on a hardware RAID controller.

 

[TAPtech]

Alright gents, first of all I want to thank everyone for the help and correspondence so far!

I've set up the Dell OpenManage software, it seems great so far. Lots of information kept neatly in one spot and ability to set up alerts for many different items, inluding hardware.

Looking at the drives, I don't think we have any data redundancy on the 1TB add-on. The Physical Disks display in Open Manage lists three disks with IDs of 0:0, 0:1, and 0:2. The first two are the "250GB" mirrored SATA drives.

The third drive is a 931GB WD SATA drive. Storage manager shows this as one Simple Volume- should I even bother opening up the case to verify? I have recommended to the customer that we set up at least another drive to mirror this. Their needs don't necessitate a RAID5 setup, the mirrored should be adequate.

I've also recommended that they transfer their current Exchange set up to NetworkSolutions as they already have an account with them. They have 8 email accounts, with the prices from NS its difficult to justify keeping Exchange, Active Directory, File Server, and hosting two websites all on this old and getting older server in a closet with 90* temps!

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Well, a single physical drive in a server is not smart, IMO. If that 1TB drive was being used to store data, apps, Exchange e-mail, etc....and that drive tanks...where's the redundancy to prevent the server from going down? Shouldn't put drives in a "server" without setting up RAID. Part of what makes a server a server is the fact that it has redundancy and performance.

I'd want to grab a matching drive and slam it in there and build a RAID 1...just for the sake of comfort.

There's not enough info here to determine if this client is too small and simple to be able to toss away AD and push Exchange to hosted. I'd want to know/see the needs of this client before making this kind of decision.

 

[TAPtech]

Yes, I'll be installing an additional 1 TB drive and mirroring it.

The client has 8 email accounts, and 4 of those they use smart-phones in addition to Outlook. They have an AD but all of the workstations are in a workgroup and not in the domain. They have a simple webpage with the same domain, but it is hosted by Network Solutions. They have another webpage with an alternate name that is hosted by their on-site server. I've just contacted NS about pricing for the hosted exchange- they are currently paying for the web hosting service for the second website, they just aren't using it. This is a bit strange.

I plan to keep AD but send exchange hosting to NS.

I beleive that cloud based is a good idea for this client. They are in an industrial park which seems to have frequent power outages and lightning strikes in the area. I am not sure how often this happens, but it is enough that multiple employees have mentioned it to me.

I certainly appreciate the advice. Given this new information, do you think that web hosting is a good approach?

EDIT: I am just now wondering this scanario- the AD is hosted on-site and the power goes down over the weekend. Will the employees still be able to access emails with their smart-phones, or is the hosted Exchange out of action while the AD is down?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

With many remote users, a cloud hosted solution like Office 365 sounds better and better.

First order of business however, I see you mention a website hosted on the local server. YIKES! Port 80 on a domain controller exposed to the internet...yikes yikes!

I'd move the websites to a web host.
How many workstations in this office?
If it's not many..and, well, since they're not properly joined to the domain, I guess after this point the server was a waste of money for them...I'd just turn the box into a basic file storage server after you've moved the Exchange to a hosted Exchange. I'd probably ditch the hybrid AD-Office 365 too.

 

[TAPtech]

That's a lot of yikes! There are about 15 workstations. There is a SQL database on the server as well. I like the idea of keeping the server for these purposes, and as a good secured file server. They already paid someone else for it, so they may as well utilize what services it can offer that make sense. They also will be installing some software which utilizes network-administered keys. The server is a good place for these to be set up.

I think that perhaps someone decided that they needed a server, and they needed email. So they needed AD and Exchange. It's a shame they already have webmail accounts set up with NS and could have saved some money in this regard. I wish they found me sooner!

I'll set them up with NS hosted exchange. My set up fee is small, and they will spend quite a bit less in maintenance this way.

 

[drjones]

Hi guys,

A new customer of mine (my first really good one!) asked me to come in to "scan" their network. I was a bit unsure of what they were asking me to do so I headed down to see the owner in person. We went over a bunch of issues that he was having, mainly with reliability. So he asks me to just check the server to see "how bad it looks."

So i go into the server room (hot closet) which is just riddled with cables and wires and gear. Log onto the server, it is SBS 2008, and man does it have some issues. No backups configured, DHCP service crashes, 4% OS disk space left, using 90% of RAM, etc.

One of the issues is that someone along the line bought a Western Digital MyBook NAS intended to be a server backup. I have configured a wbadmin script to backup to this drive nightly, however it does not seem to be the right way to do things. I made the backup as soon as i could because the last one was a year old!

The owner mentioned that he would gladly have me get the proper gear, but I'm wondering if you guys think the WD NAS drive would be alright? I'm leaning towards a directly connected USB set up.

- Clean up that OS partition quick.

- How much RAM does it have? I think a bare minimum is 12GB, that's without Exchange. I'd shoot for at least 16, more if he'll pay for it & the server can hold it.

- re: Backup; how much data does he have? An internet-based backup is of course an option, you could get them an additional USB drive to use, or get him two Netgear NAS's and use their replicate feature (additional cost though) to create your own offsite backup with virtually unlimited storage; you can get the 6-bay unit up to like 18TB with 3TB disks in it.

 

[TAPtech]

Hi drjones,

Originally server had 4GB RAM. I've upgraded to 8GB and have an additional 4GB that I may add, but seems that 8GB is ok for this customer.

They currently have about 150GB of data on the server. Their big issue which I am helping them resolve is that a lot of their data is kept on a few different workstation hard drives in engineering. These are Solidworks and other CAD files, very important to the company. I have helped to implement a PDM Vault, we are moving the data into the vault and onto the server.

The server is now backed up to a NAS device. It has a USB port but unfortunately it is to plug in another hard drive only and cannot be plugged into the server, which I would have preferred over the network.

They have issued a PO for me to install another internal server 1TB drive to mirror the original.

 

[TAPtech]

Do either of you have experience with the Dell SAS/6iR set ups?

I have another drive to set up as RAID 1, but I am assuming I will not be able to build the array in the hardware setup without mirroring the drive, formatting, and then transferring.

Would it be a bad idea to simply install the drive and set up software RAID 1 with windows? This is for a data drive and it does not contain the OS.