Reasons backups are so much faster in Windows Server 2012 Essentials
Over on Microsoft TechNet, I've been very impressed with the level of responsiveness and confidence that Microsoft is showing lately. It's great to see community efforts sometimes do seem to pay off. Not just a nice thank you. Something much better. A faster product.
Witness the persistent enthusiasts, who take the time to report issues at connect.microsoft.com before a product is released, and of course at social.microsoft.com. See such constructive talk about slow restores on WHS2011 over here.
I reported to Microsoft that the very same hardware that ran WHSv1 fairly well was slower doing backups and restores under WHS2011, with no apparent disk/CPU/memory bottlenecks. Something other factor seemed to be throttling the performance. This was in hopes of it getting fixed in future patches or releases, of course. Flash forward to the present.
The slow backups and restores of WHSv1 and WHS2011 have seemingly been addressed in Windows Server 2012 Essentials, this is great news indeed.
Of course, we still need to wait until folks like me try the RTM version with 12 PCs backed up daily (~4TB of data in all), but I believe the spectacular performance of the Beta I've seen here, and the comments from Ning below, give me some good reasons for optimism.
Ning Kuang Microsoft Windows Server…(MSFT, Partner) 2,185 Points Owner:
Wednesday, August 01, 2012 6:12 AM
Hi, Tinkererguy,
Thank you for the follow ups. I remember working on the performance ticket. We also had similar reports from the Windows Home Server Connect Feedback site. The product team had a long discussion/Investigation on this. We were able to improve the performance by increasing the data size of the disk I/O operations. It is great to see customer appreciate the results!
This post is “AS IS” and confers no rights. Ning Kuang[MSFT] Windows Server Program Manager
Source:
Microsoft TechNet, Resources for IT Professionals > Forums Home > Windows Server Forums > Windows Server 2012 Beta Essentials General
Welcome to Windows Server 2012 Essentials, a flexible server platform for small business and first server environments
See also TinkerTry.com/windows-server-2012-beta-essentials-backups-restores-faster-than-whs2011-and-whsv1
Aug 21 2012 Update:
There is a flip side to this. Basically, it's looking like sticking with Windows Home Server 2011 family of products, aka Colorado, will get you only fixes like the recent Update Rollup 3:
TinkerTry.com/update-rollup-3-windows-home-server-2011-and-windows-storage-server-r2-essentials-released-august-14-2012
What it won't likely get us is any fixes to performance issues, unsurpisingly. See also this is the update email I got today, August 21, 2012:
The following feedback item you submitted at Microsoft Connect has been updated:
Product/Technology – Windows Server Solutions
Feedback ID – 746592
Feedback Title – Speed of PC Backups to WHS2011 and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials much slower
The following fields or values changed:
Field Status changed from [Resolved] to [Closed]
also seen in this publicly submitted Microsoft Connect bug report I created back on June 5, 2012:
connect.microsoft.com/SBS/feedback/details/746592/speed-of-pc-backups-to-whs2011-and-windows-storage-server-2008-r2-essentials-much-slower
One would guess, those "current priorities" are actually the imminent release of the $425 (USD Retail) Windows Server 2012 Essentials. What do you think? Please comment below, or at the new homeservershow/forums post here.
