Backup and Recovery Strategies

When you receive a GV STRATUS server from the factory, the machine has a generic image on the E: drive. The generic image is not specific to the individual machine. It is generic for all machines of that type. Some servers also have a system-specific image on the E: drive.

When you receive your GV STRATUS server new from the factory, you receive a system-specific image for the server. This factory image is stored on a bootable USB Recovery Flash Drive located inside the front panel of the hardware. Also on the Recovery Flash Drive is the Acronis True Image software necessary to create and restore an image.

After your server is installed, configured, and running in your system environment, you should create new recovery disk images for the machine to capture settings changed from default. These “first birthday” images are the baseline recovery image for the machine in its life in your facility. You should likewise create new recovery disk images after completing any process that changes system software or data, such as a software upgrade. In this way you retain the ability to restore to a recent “last known good” state.

For the highest degree of safety, you should create a set of recovery disk images, in addition to storing disk images on the E: partition. Since system drives are RAID protected, in most failure cases the disk images on the E: partition will still be accessible. But in the unlikely even of a catastrophic failure whereby you lose the entire RAID protected system drive, you can use your recovery disk images on the USB Recovery Flash Drive to restore the system.

For image restore procedures, refer to related topics in this Topic Library.