Forum Discussion

Chuck_Mason's avatar
12 years ago

How to clone a Windows server with Storage Foundation

Before I can rapidly recover data from one server to another, is there a way to use Storage Foundation to clone the spare server, first? 

  • Hi Chuck,

    Can you provide more details on what you are trying to do?

    SFW can mirror volumes and has Flashsnap to make quick backups of data volumes. 

    SFW is not needed to mirror the system drive since that can be done with Windows LDM.

    As a general recommendation, Symantec does not recommend cloning servers with SFW/SFW-HA installed on them.  SFW during installation creates a random ID for the server that it uses to identify that no other servers have imported diskgroups owned by a server.  if the servers are cloned then the clones will have duplicate node IDs for SFW.  Cloning software can also give some of SFW's drivers issues in loading.

    Thank you,

    Wally

  • Hi Chuck,

    Can you provide more details on what you are trying to do?

    SFW can mirror volumes and has Flashsnap to make quick backups of data volumes. 

    SFW is not needed to mirror the system drive since that can be done with Windows LDM.

    As a general recommendation, Symantec does not recommend cloning servers with SFW/SFW-HA installed on them.  SFW during installation creates a random ID for the server that it uses to identify that no other servers have imported diskgroups owned by a server.  if the servers are cloned then the clones will have duplicate node IDs for SFW.  Cloning software can also give some of SFW's drivers issues in loading.

    Thank you,

    Wally