Is a Backup of a Backup OK?

[majones]

I use VAW to backup PCs to my WHS2011 physical server, and then use VAW to backup the server to a large USB drive that I rotate for offsite storage. So the USB drive contains a backup of the PC backups. Is this OK? I ask because if I restore a volume from the USB to the server that contains backups of the PCs, the restored backups look fine on the server but if I then use them to restore any of the PCs there is a failure with the message "Some errors occurred. See log files for additional information." The original backups of the PCs on the server restore fine, so I'm guessing something must be going astray when the vmb, vbk and vib's from the PC's are restored to the server from the USB? Or is my approach flawed, in which case what is the correct solution?

[Technogod]

I would open a support case using VAW to open the case.

[Dima P.]

Hi Martin,

If ‘child’ backup chain (.vbk, .vib, .vbm) was stored in the ‘parent’ backup file I can't think of any issues during recovery. Please check with our support team.

[majones]

I have done some experimentation, and discovered that I can successfully restore from a machine backup made to the server, after it has been backed-up off the server and then restored, provided all the disk-to-disk processes are over the network or SATA. The use of USB interfaces seems to be the root cause of the problems I have encountered, these being backups-restored-from-backups and, occasionally, copied backups that are unusable. I think this is something you should look into because people may be relying on USB backups that ultimately prove to be useless.

My approach now will be to make the backups of the server via eSATA, and to avoid USB connections at all costs. The target disk is then seen as an internal disk so I have to specify the volumes requiring back up, but that's a trivial requirement relative to the benefit of knowing that the backups will work properly when restored.

[Dima P.]

Hello Martin,

Thanks for the heads up. I'll pass this information to the QA team