Windows Home Server 2011 : Configuring a Computer for Backup

By default, Windows Home Server always backs up all the computer’s drives (or, more accurately, it backs up all the computer’s NTFS drives). This is ideal because it means that if a computer crashes and can’t be recovered, you can still get the machine back on its feet by using a bootable USB recovery drive to restore one of the complete backups. However, there may be situations in which you don’t want or need certain parts of a computer included in the backups:

• You have a folder that contains some extremely large files (for example, ripped DVDs), and you don’t want those files taking up space in the backups.

• You have a folder that contains files you’re going to delete anyway. For example, most people delete recorded TV shows after viewing them. Because these files tend to be huge, it’s a good idea to exclude the Recorded TV folder from the backups to save space. (If you have shows you want to save, consider moving them to a separate folder that does get backed up.)

• You have an external hard drive that you occasionally bring home from work or borrow from someone else. Because the files on this drive aren’t really yours, you probably don’t want them backed up.

• You have an external hard drive that gets swapped among your family members. This could cause problems with Windows Home Server if it expects the drive to be on one computer and finds it “missing” the next time it tries to back up that machine.

For these and similar scenarios, you can exclude one or more drives and folders from a computer’s backup configuration. The next two sections show you how to do this. 

Excluding a Disk Drive from a Backup

To exclude one or more hard disk drives or hard disk partitions from a computer’s backup configuration, follow these steps:

1.	Log on to the Windows Home Server Dashboard.
2.	Display the Computers and Backup tab.
3.	Click the computer you want to work with.
4.	Click Customize Backup for the Computer. Windows Home Server launches the Customize Backup for Computer Wizard (where Computer is the name of the computer you’re configuring).
5.	Click Add or Remove Backup Items. The wizard examines the computer and then displays a list of disk drives and partitions, as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. Use the Customize Backup Wizard to exclude one or more drives or partitions from a computer’s backups.
6.	Deactivate the check box for each partition that you want to exclude from the backup.
7.	Click Next. The wizard displays a summary of what will and won’t be backed up for the computer.
8.	Click Save Changes to complete the configuration.

Excluding Folders from a Backup

To exclude one or more folders from a computer’s backup configuration, follow these steps:

1.	Log on to the Windows Home Server Dashboard.
2.	Display the Computers and Backup tab.
3.	Click the computer you want to configure.
4.	Click Customize Backup for the Computer. Windows Home Server launches the Customize Backup for Computer Wizard (where Computer is the name of the computer you’re configuring).
5.	Click Add or Remove Backup Items. The wizard examines the computer and then displays a list of disk drives and partitions.
6.	Click the plus sign (+) beside the drive that contains the folder or folders you want to exclude. A list of the folders on that drive appears.
7.	Repeat step 6 until you drill down to the folder you want to exclude. (You may need to drill down into various levels of subfolders to find the one you want.)
8.	Deactivate the check box for each folder that you want to exclude from the backup, as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2. Deactivate the check box for each folder that you want Windows Home Server to exclude from the backups.
9.	Repeat steps 6–8 to exclude other folders, as needed.
10.	Click Next. The wizard displays a summary of what will and won’t be backed up for the computer.
11.	Click Save Changes to complete the configuration.

Adding a New Hard Drive to a Backup

If you add a hard drive to a computer, Windows Home Server eventually detects the new drive, changes the network status to At Risk, and displays the alert shown in Figure 3 on each client.

If you don’t want to include this drive in the computer’s backups, follow these steps to handle the warning:

1.	Click the alert. (If the alert no longer appears, right-click the Launchpad icon in the notification area, and then click View Alerts.) The Alert Viewer appears.
2.	Select the warning, as shown in Figure 4. Figure 4. You can tell Windows Home Server to ignore the new drive.
3.	Click Ignore the Alert. Windows Home Server asks you to confirm.
4.	Click Yes.
5.	Click Close.

On the other hand, you might prefer to include the new drive in the computer’s nightly backups. In that case, you need to work through the following steps to reconfigure the computer:

Turning Off Backups for a Computer

There might be times when you don’t want a particular computer to get backed up:

• You might know that you’ll be using the computer during the backup time, and you don’t want the backup process to slow down your work.

• You might need the computer to run an all-night job (such as compiling a large application or rendering a 3D image), and you don’t want the backup to interfere.

• The computer might be a backup or spare with no important information on it.

• You might be running out of storage space on the server, and you want to prevent backups until you can add more storage.

For these and similar situations, you can tell Windows Home Server not to back up one or more computers. Here are the steps to follow:

To tell Windows Home Server to resume backing up the computer, follow steps 1–4, click Back Up All of My Files and Folders for the Computer, and then click Save Changes.

Configuring Time Machine to Back Up Your Mac

One of the great new features in Windows Home Server 2011 is support for Macs right out of the box. This not only includes using Launchpad on your Mac to access shared folders and Remote Web Access, but it includes the welcome capability to configure Time Machine to back up your Mac to Windows Home Server. Here’s how you set this up: