Day 15: Using WHS/Essentials Client Computer Backup

This blog post continues on the backup topic of our step-by-step series. Today we look at WHS/Essentials Client Computer Backup. This is the oldest supported backup solution in Lights-Out (available since Windows Home Server 2011). The successor products Windows Server Essentials 2012 and 2016 still include, in my opinion, one of the best backup solutions for client computers.

Key features of WHS/Essentials Client Computer Backup

Client computer backup stores an image of each client disk on the server. Identical data from multiple clients is only saved once (data de-duplication). The backup data base is not accessible via file shares. Hence you have a good protection against ransomeware.

You can restore single files and folders or entire disks. Bare metal restore is possible via boot-able USB stick or via network boot.

Backup is not running on a fixed schedule, instead it uses a time frame, the backup windows. Backups are executed daily within that time frame if the computer is active.

Lights-Out support

Lights-Out supports WHS/Essentials Client Computer Backup completely out of the box. It detects WHS/Essentials Client Computer Backup automatically. There is no need for any additional configuration.

Finally, Lights-Out adds some additional benefits to your WHS/Essentials Client Computer Backup:

• Especially relevant: Lights-Out can start computers from shut-down to run a backup!
• You can configure and execute an action after backup. As a result, is it easy to save energy after a backup.
• Furthermore, Lights-Out allows you to run additional backups (scheduled or manually) if one backup a day is not enough
• Lights-Out reports backup progress, result and the estimated point in time for the next backup (see screen shot below)

Summary

WHS/Essentials Client Computer Backup and Lights-Out are a perfect pair for data protection of client computers. Simply to set-up and configure, yet powerful and reliable.

Tomorrow we will look at the server and the traditional Windows Server Backup.

Here you will find the complete list of all days of our step-by-step series.