Active Backup for Business: How to Backup a Windows PC to a Synology NAS
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ส.ค. 2024
- This tutorial will show how you can backup a Windows PC to a Synology NAS using Active Backup for Business. These steps can be used for disaster recovery and to ensure that your data stays safe on Windows 7/10/11. We include full restoration instructions as well that show how to restore individual files or complete a bare metal restore.
1. Install Active Backup for Business & Setup Templates for Windows PC's
2. Active Backup for Business Agent Installation
3. Restoring Individual Files
4. Bare Metal Restore
4.1 How to Create Recovery Media
4.2 Completing a Bare-Metal Restore
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DISCLAIMER: The information in this video has been self-taught through years of technical tinkering. While we do our best to provide accurate, useful information, we make no guarantee that our viewers will achieve the same level of success. WunderTech does not assume liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to damage caused directly or indirectly from its content or associated media. Use at your own risk. DISCLAIMER: The information in this video has been self-taught through years of technical tinkering. While we do our best to provide accurate, useful information, we make no guarantee that our viewers will achieve the same level of success. WunderTech does not assume liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to damage caused directly or indirectly from its content or associated media. Use at your own risk.
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This was a great tutorial. As a recent New NAS user i find this very helpful, though it isn’t the first or 2nd video I’ve watched covering this at this point. A clear calm voice and detail step by step never fails when explaining the does of technology setup.
Glad that it helped, thanks so much for the kind words!
I love your written instructions. I always print a color copy and then watch you lecture. I am a beginner, I have learned Synology through your lecture with grateful. Your lecture is smooth, clear, and in a logical sequence. After each course, I can follow your step by step, and accomplish my goal. Thanks.
Thanks so much! I am very happy to hear that, I'm glad that they've helped out! I appreciate the kind words.
I love the fact that Synology provides all-in-one solution! Thanks for the tutorial.
Thank you so much. I replaced the backup with Synology Drive for this one. Drive is a great program which I continue to use for sync folders, and my Macs I will keep on backing up on my Nas via TimeMachine. But now I have a Timemachine for my PC and I love it. I had some troubles logging in with the app on the PC, but it solved itself. I made a backupmap myself on the Nas, because I always want to enable data checksum on my folders and the standard folder had not. But further the proces went as you showed. I have my first NAS for a few weeks now, and learned very much from you and another Synology NAS youtuber. Thanks and grtz from The Netherlands.
Makes sense since DSM 7 will be out of beta soon. Looking forward to seeing more tutorials using DSM7.
Great tutorial. I only wish there were details about how to create the recovery media with working network drivers. I've done this multiple times on various Windows laptops and each time I had to go through additional non-obvious extra steps to create the bootable recovery media with the network drivers required to boot with a working Wi-Fi network. Considering that a bare metal restore is impossible without a working network these steps should be outlined either in the video or mentioned in the written instructions.
Thanks! I'll try and highlight it better in the written instructions, but it's hard because every motherboard is different, so the problems you run into might be different than the problems I run into. Trying to account for them all in advance is difficult. I've never personally had to load up network drivers, but I've also never done a bare-metal restore over Wi-Fi. Definitely something I'll look into.
Great stuff thank you didn’t no u could do this going to use this for my home pc.
It's been a while since I know I had watched this vid about 2 months ago and after i got my NAS and learning how to setup and use. It took me a while to get to using Active Backup for Businesses and in Backing up my Windows PC and after an event. Initially when i tried using the Agent Backup it seemingly kept failing when i'd look at it later or unslept my PC. Many times it failed. So i set PC never sleep to catch a Backup and its duration. It took somewhere between 24-30hrs to backup about 1.8 TB Data to my DS 1520. This includes 5 drives on PC, (2) M.2, (2) Samsung Solid State Drives, and 1 Segate HDD at 4 TB. Of which which 1.1 TB was on a Media Data Segate HDD, about 130 GB on Windows Drive C (M.2) and remaining 700 GB on another drive (M.2). It was my observation leaving the PC for this entire duration it took this long almost 30 hrs of which it was just slower backing up the slower Segate at like 10-12 mbps. I thought WoW that is loooong! But I got the Backup Complete!
So was like ok, i have another backup scheduled already being like 2-3 days apart and if its gonna be this long again, that's not gonna be good. However, what I observed was that on the very next backup it took less than 25 minutes in total for the Backup to complete. I was like huh, that's interesting but no idea why. After the 3rd successful backup i looked at the Synology Agent log again after the next Backup and observed it took about 22-24 minutes. And so again, i thought this is interesting observation and nothing i've heard anyone explain with the Active Backup. It thus seemed to me that the very first Backup Mapping is the one that takes the absolute longest to "Snapshot", Read then Upload. Then on next time, that same Snapshot image is far reduced to maybe only take into account changes that occurred? Not quite sure. But it still has to take some time to backup some important components of the Snapshot imaged data even with not much changing. As not much data changed over the course of a few days on the entire PC. What I would be interested in is getting your feedback or in a video explanation of what Active Backup is actually doing in these events starting from the 1st and then on each event after. That is all interesting to know and i only learned it from curious observation. But in the various NAS Channels I've watched, so one has exactly explained that. Everyone just goes over How to Setup etc and that kinda stuff but not what exactly occurs and between events.
I will look into creating a video for this! In summary, the first backup always takes the longest as future backups only view and upload the changed data. Therefore, it's not going to back up the exact same file if it hasn't changed. That is generally why future backups are much quicker.
Great video! one question though, if I am going to back up two different PC's with bare metal restore, do I need to create two recovery medias one for each, or one is enough as long as both PC's are backed up on NAS? Thanks!
Thanks! I kind of remember (it was a while ago) creating individual media for each PC. I'd run through it on one and see if it adds any drivers in and then go from there.
Your tutorials are fantastic. I was just watching this again after watching, "Protect your system from bit rot.." I setup my ABB via your tutorial and noticed that the system creates the ABB directory itself and does not enable data integrity. I'm gathering it is why you use your own folder called backup?
Thanks so much! I believe that you can change the directory if you'd like, but it's disabled by default due to something with how ABB stores the data. Overall, bit-rot is a bigger concern for data that is rarely touched (movies, photos, music, etc). I wouldn't worry too much about that in this scenario, but you can change it if you'd like!
Does Active Backup include just the system drive (where windows is installed) or does it include all drives attached to the PC? My PC has 4 internal drives? If it is all drives is there a way to exclude certain drives? All files on my drives besides the system drive are backed up to my NAS using Synology drive client. I have been a Synology user for a long time and recently upgraded from a DS213 to a DS220+. I really appreciate your videos; they have helped me better understand how things work and the setup instructions are excellent.
Yes, you can either back up the whole PC (all drives) or select drives. In the settings for the PC itself in ABB, the options will be present.
hello! thanks for your super videos in general. Question: how to restore a pc baremetal backup if lets say I cannot connect to the network (where NAS is connected) or in extreme case the NAS is broken? If I use HyperBackup to backup in external device the baremetal backup that was created from ActiveBackup for Business, will I be able to fully restore? if yes, how? thank you very much for your reply.
That's a tough one because that's the ultimate catastrophic event (PC is gone and NAS is gone or not accessible). Hyper Backup is an archive, so you won't be able to use that. I believe that you'd have to restore the hyper backup data to the NAS, then connect to the NAS and restore the PC.
@@WunderTechTutorials clear answer as always. Thanks a lot.
Active Backup for Business: will this work for Mac/IOS also, or just Windows and Linux? I have a mixed network of PCs and Apple. Thanks, great videos, just subscribed today.
Thank you for watching! It will unfortunately not work on a Mac or iOS (as far as I know), but I believe that you can use Active Backup for Business to set up an Rsync job from your Mac. Not ideal and it might give you some trouble setting it up, but hopefully Synology will release a Mac version some day!
Thank you, clear and most useful. Is there a way to make selective backup of the PC rather than the entire disk? I have not found that option.
Thanks! You can change the volume, but I'm afraid you can't select the individual folders/files.
It’s like Acronis True Image but from
Synology. Looks nice
Yes, great comparison. It works well and I've been happy with it overall. Not for everyone, but if you have a NAS, it's worth checking out!
Hi, thanks for the great video. I just bought the DS220+ and would like to do a backup of the PC. However, I am not sure if the active backup business would backup just the C: (where the Windows operating system resides) or would it also include my D: and E: when the "entire device" is selected. I was also using Synology Drive to backup my PC earlier, and I do not wish to duplicate the same backup files again. Also I was informed by the Synology Support Team that Active Backup for business would be more useful for backing up the main operating system. Appreciate your advice. Thanks
That is correct - using "Entire System" will back up all drives. It's a good idea to check after the backup finishes though (through the ABB portal) to make sure it backed everything up.
Now that I have to actually rely on this, hit a brick wall. Had to have SSD and motherboard replaced on Lenovo Yoga laptop and was hoping to do a bare-metal restore. Get it to boot from the recovery USB, but then says it is missing network drivers. Followed Synology's instructions to determine the LAN driver and install those drivers. That gets me through to the IP/login screen. Unfortunately, no matter what I do on that screen, it always comes back with "Failed to connect."
Any recommendations?
Great video. Tip: I use SD cards with a USB adapter because USB electronics fail. Could you do a follow-up video; I believe to be able to boot a backup as a virtual machine you have to backup a Win10 machine as a server.
I will add this to my list for a future video!
Great video. Do I need a USB boot drive for every Windows 10 computer or only 1 Windows 10 USB boot drive for all Windows 10 computers?
I believe that you do. What I do is make the ISO images, store them somewhere safe and then copy the ISO image to a USB stick if I need it. This way, they're there if I need them, but I don't need to have a bunch of USB sticks laying around.
Your user frank is in the group admin or it’s a normal user for the Synology ? Or it’s the actual login and password for the windows machin that you want to backup? I mean at around 3 minutes in the video. I missed something for sure :)!
Frank is the regular user account inside of DSM.
Do you need to create a recovery media for each device that you backup or is it a one size fits all creation ? If it's a separate recovery USB for each device, should this be recreated periodically if, for example, you add, delete, or change partitions on the backed up device ?
I have heard mixed answers to the first question. I think it depends on the drivers of the device, so I think the answer is "it depends". I normally create one for each.
The partition question is a good one. I honestly have no idea. I tried to search and find an answer but it doesn't appear to have much info. I think that answer would have to come straight from Synology unfortunately.
@@WunderTechTutorials I just found out. I made one for my Windows 11 desktop and used it to recover a Windows 10 desktop.
Thanks, great video! 2 quick questions:
First, the area at initialization that asks for NAS ip, username, password, are you/should you be using your synology "master admin" username or your basic user name? Obviously the other user computers all have basic synology username accounts and that will be used on those computers when installing the agent, but wondering on my own computer should I use my master admin name or basic name (I should note the following as this may affect your answer, that on my own computer I am using SMB and logged into the NAS with my basic name).
Second, does it matter which windows user account the agent is installed on? 2 of my other computers have multiple windows user accounts installed, a Microsoft user account that is the administrator (the users don't have the password or access to this account), and a local user account (non-MS account) which is what is mainly logged into and used by those users. As a follow-up question to this, irrespective of your answer, would the active backup agent perform a full backup/image/clone of the files and drive so that both user accounts on the computer are captured?
One other question, once active backup for business is set up properly, does that mean we could disable FileHistory and Backup & Restore (Win 7) on all these Windows 10 PCs? Also, would we still have the feature/capability of right-clicking on any file or folder on the PC and have the Restore Previous Versions option which opens the files Properties and Previous Versions tab listing all previous versions we can instantly restore? (I thought the latter to work requires Windows FileHistory to actively be on)
1. I would suggest using the regular user account - just make sure it has the correct permissions.
2. I don't remember if the installer is user or PC-based, but it shouldn't matter.
3. That would be a personal preference! Make sure the app does what you want and then you can disable those if you'd like.
Do you have to create a separate recovery startup disk for each machine you are backing up?
I personally do because the documentation is pretty bleak in terms of the "driver inclusion" that it mentions, but others have said that you don't have to. In summary, if you care a lot, I'd create multiple. If not, one should (note, should) work.
Thanks for video. I notice that you used the default directory created by the app for data storage and that "Compression" was not selected. Is there a reason for not doing that? Thanks
This was done on a test virtual machine, so my setup on my production NAS is different. On that device, I have my own "backups" folder that it backs up to. I also have compression enabled there. I'm not sure compression makes a huge difference, but doesn't hurt to have it on.
I have a Synology DS 918 plus (relatively new user) I wonder how might I 1. Delete some version of the 4 home PC's I backup 2. Find duplicate files and 3. Open up some space.
You should be able to update the retention and the next time the PC backs up, it will delete the old versions. As for duplicates, it'll only store an individual copy of the file if there are any duplicates due to data deduplication. I'm not sure you can find those duplicates, however.
Great video in explaining in detail the restore process. However, it appears not to work for the Physical Server, any ideas on why that is blocked?
What type of physical server are you using, and when you say blocked, what exactly is blocked?
@@WunderTechTutorials Restore entire drive is available for PCs but the drop down next to "Restore" for Physical Serves is missing.
@@richardturkson5916 I unfortunately haven't ever backed up a physical server with ABB so I'm not exactly sure how it works 😞
Stuck at 3:00, says Internet Error.
Every thing else Internet works, accessing the Synology works too. Fresh PC install and recent reboot.
Any idea?
Remove PC client>Reboot>Install PC client again. This time the cert info came up, and I was able to continue. Cheers.
If all my PC's are the same model do I need to create the recovery media for each one of them or just create 1?
Assuming they're the exact same hardware, you only need one. If they are different hardware (CPU, Motherboard, Video Card, etc), then you need to create individual ISO's.
Nice video, thanks. So the ISO does not contain all the needed backup files for the bare metal restore, i. e., the flash drive does not act as a standalone, it still needs to retrieve the needed files from the NAS?
I create an individual ISO file for each device and store it on my NAS. I've heard conflicting information on if this is necessary, but it's a short step that ensures if drivers are included, I'll have it if necessary. Not saying you have to do this, but that's how I've always operated!
@@WunderTechTutorials When you make a system backup, say with Acronis for example (but it also holds true with any 3rd party software like EaseUS, etc), everything is included in the ISO (drivers, apps, data, etc), so that when you boot from the ISO's flash drive you're able to restore the original system and end up with an exact clone. It seems from what youe explain in your video that Active Backup for Business creates an ISO that during the restore process needs to retrieve files from the NAS, as if it were not a complete standalone ISO
@@gertwallen Everything should be included in the ISO, but there are specific drivers/devices that won't work well with the default ISO. Ultimately, the data is there so if you ever need to restore it and it doesn't work, you'll still have the data. I just choose to create an ISO for each machine in case there are system-specific drivers that are needed (as I can't really test this process beforehand).
@@WunderTechTutorials Ok, I see your point now, you mean that if you restore to a different device than the original, that some/all drivers might need to be updated. I see this as a non issue, since they can always be downloaded after the restore.
@@gertwallen I mean more on this phrase from the media creation documentation:
"Administrators can adopt this tool if the device intended to be restored is not running a 32-bit version of Windows and does not contain specific drivers, time zone, and language"
The "does not contain specific drivers" section is where it's extremely confusing and is the only reason I create multiple different sets of media. I'm not sure how to determine what a "specific driver" is, so I play it safe and let the tool create the ISO on each device.
I am thinking about replacing my Dell XPS 8920 as it is getting old (has a 7th gen i7 chip that won't run Windows 11).
If I buy/build a system with no operating system, would I be able to "restore" my old system to the new one?
Another question/problem I had was with booting from a USB stick on a UEFI system. I enabled Legacy boot but the XPS 13 laptop would not recognize the USB as a bootable device. Would it make a difference if I burned an ISO image to the USB instead?
If the hardware will be different, I unfortunately don't think this will be an option for you. You generally need matching (or very, very similar) hardware in order to do a bare metal restore.
If you simply want to copy the files over when you can and store them on the NAS until you do, this is a great option!
Hello again! Quick question: Windows template has by default encryption and compression enabled but when actually backup the PC to active backup for business folder there's no compression nor encryption enabled.
Do you have different settings on that individual PC backup?
@@WunderTechTutorials not in particular. Only Bitlocker enabled. I solved the problem by creating a new shared folder and backing up my pc in that new folder. Now both compression & encryption options are available. I just wonder why they are not on the default activebackupforbusiness folder
Hi and thanks for another great video. Scenario: During a full pc backup the network connection is lost because the dog has eaten a lead! Obviously the backup can't continue. Would is pause, and FAIL. Or is it intelligent enough to pause the backup, then continue when the network is back up and running? When we use Windows 10 to back itself up to a Synology Nas and the network glitches, it ends the process.
It will unfortunately fail. As far as how it would handle the process after the PC connects, I'm not entirely positive, but I believe that it would start from scratch. I have only had this happen a few times and it started from scratch.
@@WunderTechTutorials Thanks for the reply and info.
Just a quick question. I just used ABfB for the first time and I noticed that the backup file was just under 1TB. I am assuming that it is making an ISO image of my HD. Do you know if ABfB will do incremental backups after this point or if it will be doing a full backup each time it runs. I have 4 laptops that will be I will be backing up and at 1tb per backup my 8TB drive will be full very quickly.
Thanks Rob
Yes, future backups are incremental. The first is always the largest, but future backups should go much quicker!
OK. You have helped a great deal but when I install my WIN10 software /place in the correct details/ GIVES NO INTERNET? Yes, I double-checked and viewed your TH-cam clip? Suggestions, please. I use Win10 64 bit and have a DS420+ with DSM 7.0 on the NAS.
When you say that it gives no internet, are you talking about on Windows 10? When you install the application, it reports as no internet?
Hi WonderTech. I'm hoping you know the answer to my question. Has Synology "crippled" Active Backup for Business? I ask this because, a couple of years ago I used it to backup not only VM machines on esxi 6.8, but also several other windows machines in my home lab. Since I experiment, over time, I gone other places.
Now, I want to do the same thing and I'm running into problems with just actual real machines. I can not create new task lists or do much customization of the backups.
Lets take a windows machine for example, I create a task, set the backup options but when I get to the destination part of the procedure, I get a page with no selection options. Even the "ActiveBackupforBusiness" folder is not showing. The configuration at that point won't let me move on any further until I select a destination folder.
This is driving me crazy. I don't like settling for someone else's idea of default settings.
I've not been able to finding anything about this on the internet net.
I thank you for any ideas you may have.
Nothing with ABB has changed on my side, though I haven't really changed anything with it (other than adding new machines) in close to two years. If you open ABB and go to "Storage", do you have anything listed there? If you don't, can you add anything?
@@WunderTechTutorials I just get a blank page with the headers listing the columns and a prompt to select a backup location. It doesn’t even show the that the installation created.
This afternoon I ran the synology VM and got the same results.
I have two folders. One is created when the abb was installed and the other one I was using with Veeam on my pc.
There is no way to add in a folder.
I’ve got another synology nas that is stuck away in storage because I just moved. I may go and try to find it tomorrow to see if I get the same thing.
This is just really weird.
The NAS I’m using right now is the DD1821+
@@bitpickersplace494 It definitely sounds weird. As much as I hate saying this, if the other NAS operates properly and this one doesn't, it might be a good idea to reach out to Synology support. They might be able to send you a command to re-install the package from the terminal (or something else, really just guessing at this point).
Thank you. I tried on a computer away from office and the agent not letting me connect, says internet error, can we do it or must be in loacal area network?
You can do it with port forwarding or a VPN (preferably), but without it, you must be on the local network.
@@WunderTechTutorials Thank you friend, I forwarded to port 5510 (active backup port) but still, same thing, internet error.... Also forwarded ports 5000 and 5001.. I also tried with quickconnect, dns but nothing.... is very important to backup PC away from your nas, mybe at home, in other branch offices.. but I can't find any literature about it..
@@arksurvivalevolved9190 Your best bet is to probably set up a VPN as opposed to trying to use port forwarding. I would explore that option.
How do you do a bare metal backup on a PC with multiple hard drives but only want the Boot drive in the bare metal
You can change it in the ABB settings to only back up the OS drive.
Very helpful...mostly. I keep getting an "Internet Error" on the computer I'm trying to add the agent to. The only way I've been able to get it to connect is if I turn off the Syno Firewall...which is obviously something I don't want to do. I even went into the Firewall and made sure there was an entry for Active Backup for Business, and not sure whether I need to or not, but went into the router and port forwarded 5510 to the NAS. I'm on the LAN network, so would port forwarding be needed anyway...would prefer to avoid opening/forwarding any more ports than necessary. Any solutions or guidance? In searching, seems like others have experienced this error, but not much written about it and no solutions. This is a brand new DS1621+ running DSM 7.
Update: I got too cute with my firewall rule and limited it by country (which logically should work) but being local, I now assume that created an issue.
Do question though whether port forwarding is needed at all, or only if the client devices may need to connect remotely? Thanks!
@@BrianRBrown-ID Glad you got it working! Yes, the "country" rule blocks local traffic, but you can keep that rule and create a second rule for your local network IP range or subnet which will resolve that issue.
As for needing port forwarding, the only reason you'd need it is if you're backing up PC's that are not on the local network. If they are all on the same network, no ports should be forwarded.
@@WunderTechTutorials Excellent! All makes sense. Thanks for the help. Cheers
My computer is set up to dual boot Windows 10 Enterprise and Ubuntu 20.04. When I boot up my pc the "grub" menu shows me options as to which operating system I want to boot into. When my solid state drive fails, I want to be able to buy the same SSD again and restore EVERYTHING just the way it was from my NAS or external hard drive. How may I create such a backup? Can I do this using Active Backup for Business? Thank you.
You will not be able to do it using Active Backup for Business. I have a system set up the exact way that you do as well, and truthfully, I'm not sure how you can do that outside of taking a clone of the drive periodically. You can certainly back up the Windows/Ubuntu partitions, but the grub menu is something I haven't personally done and I'm not even sure how you can go about doing it unfortunately.
I have a specific 'Projects' folder which contains my work files. I work on this folder everyday. My question is, how do I set up the DSM to backup the folder and every changed/new file thereafter? Thanks for the content
Have you looked into using Synology Drive for that? I think you'll be very happy with that. Here is a tutorial that shows you how to use it: th-cam.com/video/lohOzoFbPf0/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=WunderTech
@@WunderTechTutorials I will check the video. Thanks for the feedback!
If for some reason the IP address on your pc changes is there a way to change that in the device list or do you need to remove the device and start from scratch?
Since ABB uses a client, it should automatically update inside of DSM if the IP address of the PC changes.
@@WunderTechTutorials Ah, ok thanks for the reply. I just realized that for a few weeks now all the PC's I had never tried to back up and then when it looks like they started again it just says "missed scheduled backup of task". Then only thing I saw was the IP address inside the device list did not match the current IP address. I deleted the PC and started fresh and now it is working again. Anyway, sorry for the drawn-out response. I appreciate your help!
When I try to make a Bare Metal backup to ISO media on my NAS I receive error Not Enough Space on Volume. Is this a permissions prob? I have two 4 TB drive with nothing on them yet.
Are you receiving that on the Active Backup client on the Windows PC? Is the drive bigger than 4TB?
@@WunderTechTutorials My PC drive has 130GB free of 232 GB total. The NAS drove are two 4 TB
Yes, the message is generated on the Active Backup client on WIn 10 PC
@@coolpants99 I haven't seen that error and I'm not even sure where you can start. Clearly, there is enough space so I wouldn't view that as the problem. The only way it could be a problem is if you have multiple volumes set up and the volume doesn't have the space needed.
Hi, is Active Backup for Business safe from ransomware? I mean do i need to setup also snapshots for it?
You should always set up Snapshots since they are invaluable (if you ever need them). Active Backup for Business does have versioning, but I would implement snapshots as well.
@@WunderTechTutorials thank you for advice!
WunderTech How can you take snapshots of your windows pc and be able to restore if needed on a virtual machine? Thanks , Mark
@@markstanchin1692 When you say on your windows PC, are you running it virtually or do you just have it running on a normal hard drive? If it's just on a hard drive, unfortunately, you can't, but this process will still have the system backed up properly.
what if I failed to create ISO file?
You can still recover your files through the web portal.
@@WunderTechTutorials still can't