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Backup Strategies
- Currently, we are a ghost shop, and we make full hard drive backups of each machine before the reimage to catch files that our users forget to backup themselves before the reimage. This is slow and takes up several terabytes of unneccessary disk space.
I realize imageX is not meant to be used as a backup tool, but we do not need to be able to restore the image, just mount and grab files as necessary. I understand how appending images works, but the issue is that only one machine can write to a file at a time. Appending would save a ton of storage space though versus what ghost is capable of (or thinks it is).
I am wondering about USMT, and what exactly it can grab. Will it only grab things from the user's profile? Will it grab files people store outside of their profile as well or not?
Does anyone have a practical solution for this scenario? The best I can come up with is to have 4-5 wim files and manually back up each machine to whichever one isn't in use.
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- USMT will only capture what you tell it to via the xml files, if you want ghost like backups then you can use MDT integration in SCCM to do Refresh Scenarios which contain a backup feature which creates a WIM file of the computer prior to installing the new os
cscript.exe "%deployroot%\scripts\ztibackup.wsf"
cheers
niall
my SCCM step by step Guides > http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1064- Proposed As Answer byJason SandysMVPSunday, November 01, 2009 3:46 AM
- In addition to using the MDT script, if you are not using MDT, you could use a command-line task to initiate imagex /capture and dump it to a mapped location.
USMT is very configurable however; you can tell it to grab whatever you want using the xml configuration files.
BTW, are you using USMT 4.0? There is a great new feature in 4.0 in conjunction with moving to Windows 7 (or Vista) that is called Hard-link migration. It is for refresh scenarios and essentially migrates data in-place between the old and new OS without actually copying it anywhere: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd560753%28WS.10%29.aspx . USMT 4.0 also allows capturing data in an OS while booted into PE and not the OS itself.
Using USMT 4.0 (or 3.0 although 4.0 is faster also) you could capture everything on the drive except the OS, program, and other common files/directories and store that out on a share (or locally) -- thus eliminating the need for the single instancing of the WIM files because the only thing captured is unique to that system and the common stuff is filtered out.
Jason | http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/jsandys | http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/jsandys/default.aspx | Twitter @JasonSandys- Proposed As Answer byJason SandysMVPSunday, November 01, 2009 3:46 AM
- Is their any way to use the append switch with this script to combine images? Right now with Ghost the storage space gets ridiculous.
- Could you tell me a bit more about the option with USMT that backups everything but the OS and program files??
Take a look at this link for USMT User Guide's from Technet: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd560801(WS.10).aspx
Take a look at this link for How to setup ConfigMgr Task Sequence with USMT and Hardlinks: http://www.petervanderwoude.nl/post/ConfigMgr-2007-USMT-40-and-using-Hard-Links.aspx
My Blog: http://www.petervanderwoude.nl/- There is no specific option, you must configure it to your specifications using the configuration files.
Jason | http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/jsandys | http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/jsandys/default.aspx | Twitter @JasonSandys - as Jason says you have to configure it yourself to backup the data you want, here are some USMT 3 examples to get you started
http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/918-usmt-in-sccm/
my SCCM step by step Guides > http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1064 - One more question- I want to use the append option and excecute it using a batch file. I have the file written, etc.
Here is the issue- is their any way to run the batch file during the PE phase of the reimage and allow users to interact with it? I have command line support enabled on the boot image, and it is added as "run command line" in the task sequence. - As long as you are in PE, then yes. You may want to create a GUI for this though.
Jason | http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/jsandys | http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/jsandys/default.aspx | Twitter @JasonSandys - When I tried running my batch file before the format and partition disk step, the TS just times out. I added it to a software package and then to a DP, then I inserted a "run command line" and pointed it at the batch file. What did I miss?
Another random questions- does the cscript.exe "%deployroot%\scripts\ztibackup.wsf" support the append switch? If so, how does it behave if the file is locked\in use?
My manager really wants to retain the system of making a full disk backup instead of the USMT. We really use this as a last resort if one of our users forgot some files off some random spot on their computer. We already redirect the documents folder to the network, so most of their files do not need to be backed up anyways.
