Iomega
?
Failed
Seagate
FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 2TB
9ZQAN1-570
? USB 2.0 OK USB 3.0
OK USB 2.0 OK USB 3.0
OK
Thermaltake
BlacX Drive Caddy (USB Connection Only)
BlacX Drive Caddy (USB/eSata Connections)
intermittant connection with eSata
OK (USB 2.0)
Toshiba
StorE
PX1710E-1HJ0
To return to the SBS backup information,click here. Note that Microsoft recommend drives are reformatted as NTFS before being used with Windows Server Backup (WSB). Large drives (eg 3TB+) should be reformatted with 512 bytes per cluster as large drives tend to be factory formatted with 4096 bytes per cluster which can cause problems with WSB. Thank you to Merv Porter, SBS-MVP, for writing up the following workaround for USB backup drives that fail to wake from sleep! - Steve
Workaround for External USB Backup Drive not waking from sleep
SBS 2008 administrators may notice that certain makes/models of external USB drives may go to sleep during periods of inactivity resulting in failed backups. One workaround for this utilizes Microsoft’s Devcon utility with scheduled tasks to first remove the USB device and then to rescan the USB bus. Unfortunately, the original 32-bit version of Devcon does not function properly on a Windows 2008 system. However, the Windows Driver Kit (Version 7.1.0) contains a Windows 2008 compatible version.
On a workstation…
Download Windows Driver Kit (Version 7.1.0) iso to a folder on the hard drive
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=36a2630f-5d56-43b5-b996-7633f2ec14ff&displaylang=en
Download Universal Extractor
http://legroom.net/software/uniextract
\WinDDK\7600.16385.win7_wdk.100208-1538\tools\devcon\amd64
Back at the SBS 2008 server, log on as a domain administrator and copy the Devcon utility to a convenient place (like the root of the C: drive) and then create two Scheduled Basic Tasks…
Name: Devcon Remove USB before backup
Program: devcon.exe
Schedule: (10 minutes before backup)
Arguments: remove usbstor*
Start in: c:\
Name: Devcon Rescan USB Bus before backup
Schedule: (5 minutes before backup)
Arguments: rescan
Other parameters to include in each scheduled task…
Run with highest privileges
Wake computer if necessary (Note: not sure if this one is actually necessary)
Run even if user is not logged on
Note: You may see the following critical errors in the event log after implementing the Devcon tasks. (It is believed that these can be ignored):
Event ID 16: The shadow copies of volume \\?...340-11df-a3e5-001b217ab973} were aborted because volume \\?...340-11df-a3e5-001b217ab973}, which contains shadow copy storage for this shadow copy, was force dismounted.
Event ID 137: The default transaction resource manager on volume \\?\Volume{921672f3-f340-11df-a3e5-001b217ab973} encountered a non-retryable error and could not start. The data contains the error code.
You may also see Event ID 51 and Event ID 57 warnings.
Darren Woodford edited Revision 31. Comment: sorted by manufactuter and did some other tidying up - still needs padding sorting on table cells
Darren Woodford edited Revision 30. Comment: Split success/fails into 3 columns for SBS2003/2008/2011
Susan Bradley edited Revision 21. Comment: Added Verbatim Store N Go
Ed Price - MSFT edited Revision 19. Comment: White space
Andy Kinnard edited Revision 17. Comment: Note BlackBelt FAIL on SBS 2011
HP Simplesaves have WD drives in them, so unsure which will are guaranteed to work. Model numbers are important in this table.
WD WDBACX0010BRD 1TB fail intermitently. Can confirm Iomega Ego / Blackbelts do not work.
I like the fact MS do nothing and we all rely on us good samaritans to pull together and pickup MS pieces. Nothing changes I suppose.
*Sorry thats all on SBS2011
Sash0128, can you resolve this by reformatting the drive with 512 bytes per cluster?
Rob, thanks for sharing your experience and updating the table.
Rob Williams [MVP] edited Revision 41. Comment: Added Transcend USB 3.0 OK with SBS 2011
As I understand it, the new backup in SBS2008 and SBS2011 will not and cannot use a drive larger than 2TB due to the technology being used to maintain the backup replica drive. As the table is structured, the size of the drive is only occasionally mentioned -- there seems to be more interest in USB 2 vs 3 interfaces. I can confirm that a 3TB Seagate drive is completely unusable for SBS2011 backup regardless of how it is formatted or partitioned. The 2TB hard disk/VHS size appears to be a real hard limit and should be better documented.
We have forever used Vantec Nexstar enclosures with WD drives inside and have never had any incompatibilies with SBS backing up. I really dislike prebuilt enclosures as they seem to always go bad. It is a very rare occasion to have an Nexstar enclosure or WD drive go bad. No fans in the enclosure and the solid aluminium case keeps the drive cool. Best ROI for a backup drive. this setup basically gives us a 3 - 5 year lifecycle with that drive depending on the drive inserted.
If anyone is looking for 3TB, here is one that works right out of the box(s). This is running on SBS 2011. Hitachi Deskstar 3TB (SKU # 0S03086) and a Themaltake BlacX Caddy (P/N # ST005U) using the usb 2.0 cable. Hope someone looking to buy some new hardware finds this useful.
Please expand with a little more detail on the following statement - for instance can this be done in Windows Disk Managment or does it require a third party application ...perhaps from the drive manufacturer:
"Large drives (eg 3TB+) should be reformatted with 512 bytes per cluster as large drives tend to be factory formatted with 4096 bytes per cluster which can cause problems with WSB"
@ Dale DU-IT re "Please expand with a little more detail on the following statement - for instance can this be done in Windows Disk Managment or does it require a third party application <snip> 'Large drives (eg 3TB+) should be reformatted with 512 bytes per cluster...'"
I'm afraid that is all the information I have really as this was just mentioned to me in passing by the MS support person but I just posted it here for the benefit of others. From memory I set the drive I was using (Verbatim Store N Go 2TB) to 512 bytes per cluster when I formatted it in Disk Management / My Computer. She also said you should format the backup drive as NTFS as most drives come formatted as FAT or something else but they recommend NTFS for WSB backup target drives.
Out of interest I have still got intermittent failures but they seem related to Microsoft Exchange Writer timeouts rather than the external drive in use.
I'm using Windows Home Server 2011 and did a successful backup & restore with a 1.5TB Western Digital FreeAgent GoFlex external, portable, USB 3.0 drive. I'd enter that information in the chart if I could figure out how to edit the Wiki.
Anybody tried Hitachi?