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By admin, November 21, 2011 3:11 pm

Yes the VBK file created by transform process at the end of the week/month is enough to recover the latest VM state.

You can even extract that VBK without Veeam server present. We ship a tiny extract.exe tool (look for it in the product installation folder). No matter which media you use to backup your VBK files, just remember to put this tool there as well, and you will be able to restore data from the backup file even in 10 years from now – provided that media is still functional.

You can restore whatever restore point with the VBK. There should be some more information, such as syntax, if you do a find for “extract” in our B&R Users Guide. (Page 97 & 98)

Even if you lost the SQL backup, you could fire a new Veeam installation up (which takes less than 5 minutes) and do “Import Backup” and import your vbk/vrb/vib files and restore from those if you need other restore points.

The DB information is more about holding your job information and making sure your jobs run, you can import the data needed for restores from the files themselves.

So in other words, we  really don’t need to backup Veeam SQL data and send to DR site as this extract.exe tool will be enough even we lose the whole production site. All we need is the latest VBK file.

Comments (4)

By admin, November 21, 2011 1:52 am

Sorry, it’s really long, but I do think many will find it very interesting as it involved many things (USB 3.0 HBA, 2.5” 7200RPM external disk, Poweredge R610 PCI-e x8 slot and of course low cost Veeam Backup Solution)

I found myself running out of Veeam backup space recently. Instead of ordering an expensive DAS, I started to explore other alternative solutions that focus on low cost storage.

My Veeam Backup server is a 1U Poweredge R610 server which has 900MB internal storage (10K RPM SAS 300GB x 4 in Raid5) and it has only one PCI-e slot (Gen 2 x8) left.

The original option is to purchase a Powervault MD1200 with 12 2TB 7200RPM near-line SAS disks in Raid50 + 2 hot-spare configurations. PERC H800 raid card (with multi-path load balancing SAS Cables) is going to be used in that extra PCI-e slot. The expected performance should be around 500-600MB/s. One thing keeps delaying the client’s purchase is the cost as it is quite expensive considering there are only 16TB left (Raid50 with 10 2TB disks).

USB 3.0 really comes into play this year, giving its 10x improvement in transfer speed comparing to the old USB 2.0, it quickly captured main stream desktop and laptop market, but not in server at all.

So all I need is to find a USB 3.0 HBA with 2 or more ports, but the problem is which one?

After studied for a few days, I found out I need a latest USB 3.0 PCI-e HBA (ie, add-on card) with PCI-e GEN2 standard and each USB port has individual 5Gb/s bandwidth, so I can copy data must faster between the two USB 3.0 disks without saturating the internal bandwidth.

* Note: Bandwidth for PCI-e Gen1 is 2.5Gb/s or 250MB/s and PCI-e Gen2 is 5Gb/s or 500MB/s.

The other thing is selection of USB 3.0 disks, there are two choices: 1st one is the latest 2.5” external USB 3.0 disk that doesn’t require external power and produce very little heat. 2nd choice is to use the traditional 3.5” disk with external power supply.

In additional, you also have the choice of building your own (using USB 3.0 disk docking) or buy an existing external hard disk box either in 3.5” or 2.5”, and my preference is to go for a 7200RPM 2.5” external hard disk box that is solely powered up using standard USB 3.0 cable.

Obviously, the advantage of DIY is that you can have a higher rotation disk like 7200RPM to be placed in the disk docking because most of the pre-build external disk box are 5900RPM for 3.5” and 5400RPM for 2.5”. Of course the BIG Disadvantage is you may encounter unlimited possibilities that the disk may not work with your DIY docking or USB 3.0 box.

So I selected to play safe and I bought two disks, one is the 2.5” 7200RPM Hitachi TOURO, I wished there is a 1TB or higher 7200RPM 2.5” version, but only 750GB are available in the market currently and 1.5TB is the maximum size for normal 5400RPM 2.5” disks.

Comparing to 3.5”, disk is much bigger in size, there is even a 4TB from Seagate.

However hard disk price is really becoming more and more expensive than 2 months ago (1.5x higher in Hong Kong now than before the flooding in Thailand), so I decided to buy Lacie Minimus 2TB USB 3.0 mainly due to its price per GB and the nice looking aluminum case, actually this is important as it’s better for heat dissipation in a 24×7 data center environment.

Later I found out it’s actually a Seagate Barracuda Green Disk, Seagate ST2000DL001 (9VT156) 2TB 5900 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/ s 3.5″, it’s only slightly expensive than other 2TB external disks and has 2 years warranty, but who cares.

Besides Lacie Mimimus 2TB is still the smallest in size among all external USB 3.0 disks even after 1 year of its launch back in Nov. 2010.

Oh one more thing I noticed that after the flooding in Thailand, internal 2TB harddisk is even more expensive than those external ones with box and USB2/3, e-SATA connector, Ridiculous Really! Lucily I also ready enterprise hard disks were not affected as most of those FC/SAS/SSD were made in China or Philippines.

Side topic: I didn’t know until yesterday a 3.5” SATA 2TB 7200RPM is actually faster than a 3.5” SAS 73GB 15K RPM. Mainly due to the hard disk mechanical head only requires shifting a tiny bit to read a total 73GB data comparing to a 73GB 15K RPM disk. The same theory applies to a 2.5” 5900RPM may be equivalent to a 3.5” 7200RPM disk due to the physical size and hard disk mechanical head doesn’t need to move that much in a 2.5” disk.

Back to the topic, after searching for many USB 3.0 PCI-e add-on cards, I was only able to locate one that fits all my requirements (ie, PCI-e GEN2, USB port with individual 5Gb/s bandwidth per port).

It is the latest release of RocketU series (September 2011) from HighPoint Tech (a Taiwanese storage company). Because I only need 2 USB 3.0 ports to start with, so I selected RocketU 1022A: Low-Cost 5Gb/s Dual-Port USB 3.0 HBA with PCI-e GEN 2 x1. Later I found out it uses ASMedia as the chipset which was reported better than the original NEC chipset in performance.

Highpoint claimed its RocketU product lines is the first and only one (so far) that has Dedicated 5Gb/s PER PORT performance, so I can easily get 10Gb/s with just two ports. (Only SSD may be able to saturate such high bandwidth)

I also noticed there is a white power supply connector (Molex) on top right corner which later proved I got the wrong USB 3.0 card. In additional, I have to order it on-line from Taiwan directly because none of the shops locally carry such product.

The fun part begun, I plugged in the Highpoint RocketU USB 3.0 HBA into Poweredge R610 x8 PCI-e GEN2 slot, installed the W2K8 R2 driver, OS recognized it without any problem, then connected the 2.5” 7200RPM Hitachi TOURO, there was no blue light at all, actually nothing at all. (ie, compare to USB 2.0 port, blue light will come up if I plug it into a USB 2.0 port), probably the HBA doesn’t have enough power if I did not connect the HBA to the external power, Damn!

No problem I told myself as I still got that 3.5” Lacie 2TB with external power (ha…glad I prepared ahead and had plan B), connected Lacie to USB 3.0 port, turn on the power, and guess what? Nothing happened!

Then I email Highpoint support that night and it turned out RocketU 1022A does require the external power to operate normally, OH NO!!!

So my next search is to find a way to split the power from within R610 chassis, bad luck again, there is no way at all!

I did a deep search in this area and found others actually faced the same/similar issue with no extra power connector (Molex connector) in R610/R710 for their FusionIO SSD PCI-e card which is sold by Dell as well.

For those who has R710, they are lucky and a workable solution is available for them to use this Dell Part (GP700 ASSY,CBL,PWR,BKPLN-CD-TB,R710), the split power connector, but for R610 owners, it’s just the end of the world, PERIOD!

I’ve called Dell Pro-Support several times and confirmed the above, they suggested not worth DIY myself the power splitter as it will definitely jeopardize the stability of the server and stick to USB 2.0 instead, then I gave up and used USB 2.0 for two days, but the sustained 29.8MB/s really pissed me off!

I won’t give up, ah…there is another way, there must be a USB 3.0 HBA doesn’t need any external power supply in this world, so I Googled again and located Asus U3S6 (it’s a PCI-e GEN2 x4 product as well, but no individual port with 5Gb/s) and Western Digital (it’s a PCI-e GEN1 x1 product) has such thing, bad thing is neither can be found in Hong Kong any more as they are out of stock as the products are more than 2 years old.

I visited almost all major computer malls in Hong Kong (probably more than 200 shops), 99.9% told me all USB 3.0 HBA requires an external power connector and even I found one that without, it must be a bad design that won’t work.

I almost gave up but I still have the last drop of hope that I will find one in-time!

and I DID! I found one shop finally carries one of these rare than gold card.

It’s a re-branded Syba OEM USB 3.0 HBA (SY-PEX20081, EtronTech is the chipset, proved faster than the original old NEC one as well) without the requirement of external power supply, the most amazing part is the cost, it’s only USD12.8!!!

Inside it also indicate it does support Windows Server 2008, many other USB 3.0 HBA driver only supports Windows 7, I understand they are very similar, but I dare to take the risk.

Traveling between computer malls, so many shops, data center and finding the correct one is really tiring even Hong Kong is a tiny place. If I remember correctly, I spent at least 20 hours in searching for the right products (HBAs and external disks) and testing them.

Finally, I plug it into R610 slot, reboot, installed the driver, everything went well.

Then I cross my figures and plug in that 2.5” Hitachi TOURO 750GB 7200RPM, the blue light turned on, then dimmed again and then turned off! OH NO, this means the USB 3.0 port doesn’t have enough power to support USB 3.0 2.5” disks.

Now I only have one last chance which is to test the 3.5” Lacie 2TB with external power supply.

I plug the Lacie, turn the power on, nothing coming up as USB device!!!

Does this mean GAME OVER? OF COURSE NO, I remember Veeam 5 automatically turns off disk automount to prevent accidentally erase the SAN disk when using Direct SAN backup. All I need to do is to go to Disk Management and manually give the attached USB 3.0 disk a drive name.

BINGO, 1.87TB was right there and right in front of my eyes! YEAH! I couldn’t be happier for the rest of the day!

Then I started the fun part, testing the USB 3.0 performance using IOmeter, HDTune and ATTO Express and hoping I would get the same magically 130-140MB/s like many others did.

Disappointing is the only word when I see 35MB/s in sequential read, unplug the card, re-plug again, still the same result. I suspected it’s the driver version (Jan 2011) being too old, but I couldn’t find any newer ones on Syba product page, so I googled again (Just love google more each day), found the latest one from Gigabyte web site. Search for Etron chipset USB 3.0, found it, now the latest installed driver version is Aug 2011.

After reboot, it’s still 35MB/s, only 17% faster than USB 2.0, definitely not worth upgrading and all the trouble I went through.

So I started to email Syba support, the guy suggest it may be a defective card, so I went out to the same shop again and bought a new one the next day, tested it, amazingly, this time it shots to 138MB/s from 35MB/s, almost 4 times gain in performance, I am a happy man finally!

OK, I admit this Syba HBA is a PCI-e GEN1 x1 product and my Lacie is a 5900RPM SATA 3.0Gb, not even a 6G/b product, probably the HBA is one of the lowest bandwidth one, but still it can provide maximum 250MB/s, so it will take at least two USB 3.0 ports with two USB 3.0 disks to saturate the total bandwidth. Most important it’s more than enough for Veeam backup now.

Finally, I went back to the original shop and explained the whole story AND exchanged the defect one, I kept the swapped part as a spare just in case.

So who needs a Powervault 1200 with 2TB/2TB x 12 disks now? Probably nobody will from now on, ops sorry Dell.

If I need more bandwidth or storage in the future, I will only order a HighPoint RocketU 1144A which comes with 4 ports also doesn’t require external power supply!

The most finding of the whole adventure is HOW could I miss this perfect product in the first place! It’s a PCI-e GEN2 and 4 ports with individual bandwidth of 5Gb/s and most importantly no need for external power.

With HighPoint RocketU 1144A, I will have 4 Ports x 4 TB disks= 16TB usable, comparing to Powervault MD1200 with 12 2TB disks in Raid50 + 2 hot-spare, same 16TB usable storage, but only 1/5 the cost with 13xMB/s in read and write, well, it really doesn’t take a genius to figure out the ultimate solution.

Finally, I also came across some USB 3.0 drive bays up to 8 disks in the same case with build-in Raid5/6, and guess that will complete the low cost backup target solution.

Comments (1)

By admin, November 19, 2011 11:58 pm

After almost a whole full year of scratching my head, blaming data center for not changing to the latest rack standard. I finally figured out today how to fit the longer than usual Dell Poweredge Versa Rail into the old rack.

The solution always lies in details and only if you look carefully.

I was working on something else in the data center today and suddenly I saw that disgusting Poweredge R610 rail again. It’s been sitting there for almost 1 year and I really hate to see it’s being wasted and not in line with the rest of 11^th generation Powerdge/Powervault series. I used a rail angle instead as the original R610 versa rail was too long for the rack and I couldn’t close the back door.

As I was staring at the LONG TAIL, suddenly inspiration spiked again! Yeah! How come I didn’t think of this by removing the extra long bit from the end before?

It’s really simple as that and only if you look carefully, I think this method will work for most of the 1U longer than usual versa rail.

Finally, if you know the purpose for that extra part, please do drop me a line.

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By admin, November 11, 2011 11:47 pm

今天又找到了一段由80年代天皇天后級的Annie Lennox和David Bowie表演皇后樂隊名曲Under Pressure的精彩片段。

不知道是什麼原因﹐我自己幾十年都很迷戀那個年代的東西方巨星們﹐他們總是出台就充滿了一股極之吸引人的魅力﹐可能這就叫台風吧。

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By admin, November 10, 2011 5:05 pm

This one is awesome indeed from an Australian band.

Warning: it contains a few f words.

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By admin, November 10, 2011 3:36 pm

當年暑假剛到英國讀AL的時候﹐MTV台每天都在不斷的重複播Bohemian Rhapsody這首歌﹐後來才知道原來是皇后樂隊的主音Freddie Mercury去世了﹐記得同屋的日本妹還為Freddie不停地哭了好些日子﹐所以我看他應該是個很重要的人物。 

最近才知道這個利害的老外原來是個阿拉伯人﹐我這麼多年還以為他是個地道的Londoner﹐Freddie並且享有征服英倫樂壇亞洲第一人的美譽。

記得最近BBC的一次投票﹐QUEEN的重要性竟然超越了英倫樂壇的神話Beetles﹐實在出乎意料之外﹐可見皇后樂隊在近代樂壇的地位已經是非同小可了﹗

多年後在Youtube上找到了這段珍貴的1985年London Wembley Stadium LIVE演唱會﹐尤其是這第一節的Bohemian Rhapsody和Radio Ga Ga﹐一開始就把現場推向了高峰﹗

我太喜歡Bohemian Rhapsody那鋼琴前奏了﹐當年正值事業顛峰的Freddie完全釋放自己的激情表演加上和現場觀眾的互動(在Under Pressure這首歌)實在精彩萬分﹗

那是個曾經多麼令人懷念的80年代﹗慶幸我也曾經經歷過。。。

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By admin, November 2, 2011 3:28 pm

One of my clients requires W2K3 with MSSQL 2005 and .NET 4 as well as Silverlight4, so I started to deploy the VM from Windows Server 2003 Standard SP2 template, the template itself is configured with the most basic features, there is no IIS or .NET components.

I’ve encountered a few problems that really surprised me:

When I installed IIS, it asked me for both the Windows Server 2003 and SP2 CD-ROM (it never did if I use a W2K3 without SP2), where do I get that SP2 CD huh?  After a while, I figured out the solution is simply to extract the files from the SP2 zip then it completes the whole IIS installation.

Then I encounter another problem when installing SQL Server 2005, the installation failed with error code 1063, Google helped me again, the solution is to install .NET 2.0 first as SQL Server installation files depends on this foundation.

Finally, the client requires .NET 4.0 and Silverlight 4. Luckily, I came across this blog page “Configuring Windows Server 2003 with ASP.NET 4.0 while supporting ASP.NET 2.0“.

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By admin, October 30, 2011 5:39 pm

英國開動印鈔機，美國再度「量化寬鬆」，歐元瀕臨崩潰。中國雖然在賬面上是最大的「債主」，但在一個連美金也日漸泡沫化的時候，美元儲備有多少、持有幾多國債券，當一個國家經濟前景的雞蛋已經通通砸進了歐洲和美國這個籃子裡的時候，又有多大意義？

第二次世界大戰之後，有足足四分一世紀，亞非小國獨立，歷史給了足夠的時間讓人類痛定思痛，走上大國之路。但納粹滅絕、蘇俄發動的冷戰方酣，人類浪費了大好時機，搞到今日田地，要從頭收拾這個廢墟，為時已晚。中國開放市場，西方生產線爭相搬入中國，導致西方銀行金融信貸過剩，連英國的機械工業也已經空洞化之際，一個「債」字，把歐美拖垮。今日的孽債，早埋在什麼時候？比中國開放市場的一九七九年更早。「債」的詛咒不是今天才開始的。在金融海嘯之前，非洲許多窮國每天要償還一億美元給世上最富裕的國家，譬如西非的利比里亞，外債高達三十七億美元，但每年ZF的總支出只是一億二千萬美元，即是香港地產富豪，足可以「殺起」像利比里亞這種國家一百五十年的總支出：醫療、教育、軍隊和警察的薪酬。

債的詛咒，始自第三世界向歐美借貸，正式形成噩夢，在七十年代的石油危機。罪魁禍首是以沙地為首的石油輸出國組織，大舉提升油價。阿拉伯的油王酋長，以這種方式，形同任意為自己印鈔票——幕後有美國的支持，因為美國要用金錢誘使沙地阿拉伯、巴林、科威特等石油國，使之不倒向蘇聯，收買其成為忠實的聯盟。油價一升，沙地阿拉伯的美金收入暴漲，錢多了，存進歐美銀行。西方的銀行一度「水浸」，要急謀借貸出路，第三世界國家便成為最理想的對外借貸對象。因為別的「債仔」，可以「走路」，但第三世界如菲律賓、剛果，有土地資源，是跑不掉的。石油輸出國組織的現金收入，轉了一圈，落到第三世界貧窮國家貪污腐敗的元首的口袋——這些獨裁國家，子承父位，兄終弟及，早年反英抗法的所謂「民族英雄」，一旦「當家作主」，即刻腐化，喊假大空的口號，建水壩、修皇宮般的ZF大樓、起高速公路和大體育館，用民族主義的口號麻醉本國的賤民，歐美銀行的熱錢通通貪進了私人口袋又轉一個圈，化為瑞士銀行的戶口和英美的房地產。

英美領袖略施小計，就變了一場人類有史以來最偉大的五鬼運財戲法。第三世界的部落基因同時發酵，如果他們只熱衷假大空倒還好，壞在他們自相殘殺，貪污的獨裁家族政權，為了鞏固權力，用借來的錢買武器。二十一世紀，第三世界欠下的債務，其中有兩成是用來買軍火的；美國、俄國、中國是三大主顧，他們也樂得眉開眼笑。八十年代扎伊爾總統賽哥，其擺脫殖民地獨立後「吐氣揚眉」的成就，是為他那個黑人國家借下五十億美元，他本人中飽私囊，層層搜刮，名下在比利時擁有十一座古堡，巴黎、突尼斯、瑞士的豪宅無數，尚有幾架私人飛機。這些黑人酋長「先富起來」之後，歐美銀行的貸款以「國債」的名義結具成全國的負擔。但現金買了飛機、遊艇、豪華房車，這一切，卻都又是歐美白人國家的優等物質名牌，繞一個圈，又回到了西方的銀行，不過戶口已經是各大名牌的企業老闆。

歐美國家的政治領袖比起非洲土著，智商很高。還記不記得七十年代末、八十年代初銀行利息高達十五釐的日子？因為列根和戴卓爾治下的財政部長和銀行家，在聯手愚弄他們鄙視的第三世界獨裁者：從此窮國即墮下債務的深淵，其蟻民也墜入十八層地獄。在那幾年，油價還是上升，但原材料價格下降，南美洲要賣幾多噸香蕉給美國才抵得上利息？道理就像今日的中國，賣幾多件血汗T恤，才換回一百億美元外匯，然後又用同一筆外匯買LV、紅酒、波音新客機？「橋唔怕舊」，騙局的理論一樣，惟中國與南美洲的扎伊爾之流的第三世界不同之處，是中國擁有十四億人口，是一個大國。這樣一來，七十年代歐美對第三世界，通過中東油價和未開化的非洲獨裁者為槓桿的吸星大法，雖可同樣施於中國，但中國的廉價勞工市場，卻反過來也把歐美的實業生產力吸走。換言之，七十年代歐美對亞非第三世界的吸搾，如果是強姦，則中國加入了這場淫亂派對。二十年來，與歐美合夥變成了一尊精髓互吸的歡喜佛。

《金瓶梅》在四百多年前，好似早有預見，一個西門慶，一個潘金蓮，講的不就是今日歐美與中國？好笑的是，春梅和李瓶兒，如印度、越南等，還要爭着上西門慶的床呢。國際貨幣基金會必要時就「干預」了，要第三世界重整債務，迫令其「經濟改革」，譬如，多賣點農產品，少些「公共開支」。但第三世界既然獨裁，黑鬼總統夫人又怎捨得少上巴黎少掃幾隻鑽戒呢？貪污如故，造成的只會是削減可憐的賤民的教育和醫療。世界經濟困局，陷入了泥潭，原因就是如此，一點也不複雜。明眼人一看，就知道貧富懸殊，只會加劇，絕對沒得救。世界即將在人性和政治的醜戾自私中覆滅，出生早一點的，如英國殖民地時代的香港人，英國人給了你時間、機會，你可以造好自己的救生艇。晚出生的一代，像什麼九十後，如同今日的蘇丹和埃塞俄比亞同齡的人，就沒有什麼機會了——不錯，香港的九十後，再「赤貧」也有褲子穿，不必皮包骨。但絕望的本質是一樣的。

- 陶傑

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By admin, October 28, 2011 1:19 pm

I just found out “Reality” (by Richard Sanderson), one of my favorite songs of the 80s is actually from a 1980’s French movie “La Boum”, and Guess What? That little girl (14 years old) in the movie is Sophie Marceau later we all know who she is.

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By admin, October 26, 2011 10:35 pm

After playing with Head YOUTEK IG Extreme Pro almost 3 weeks, I’ve decided it’s time for me to get an extra stick for spare in case my 1^st one broke as Head YOUTEK IG Extreme Pro is famous for eating strings.

It came to my attention someone has posted a 99.9% new IG Extreme Pro in a local tennis forum, so I contacted the seller directly and bought it without hesitation at almost 30% off the original price.

One of the most important reasons is because I do need an original Grip 3 IG Extreme Pro.

Originally I was thinking selling the original Grip 2 at the same tennis forum, and there was actually a NO Brain approached me asking for 50% off, then I found out it’s very easy to change the grip to a Grip 3 at a pro-shop, even better, I simply put an over grip on the of the Grip 2 solved the problem with $40.

After receiving the racket, I couldn’t be happier, as I found out it’s almost new, even newer than my 1^st one, absolutely no scratch on the bumper that makes me wonder if the previous owner actually went to court and hit the balls.

Then it’s the perfect Grip 3, I can feel it’s even a bit smaller than my DIY Grip 3.

Anyway, I do hope the pair will last for a long long time, probably another 20 years just like my beloved POG. Well, it may not be a good news for local pro-shop though.