Save State on SBS 2003 OK?

[scottgus1]

I'm trying to refine my backup routine (http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=37835). I'm thinking of saving state (not snapshot) on each VM then copying the .vdi's, .sav's, and the .Virtualbox folder, then rebooting the host and letting the auto-restart script launch the VM's. (Saving state and copying the files was recommended by Sasquatch in a few posts.) I'm rather firmly certain that the XP VM can do this, but I'm not certain of the SBS2003 VM.

I read on Microsoft's website that SBS2003, because it has Exchange, cannot hibernate (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/900966). Is Virtualbox's Save State anything like SBS2003-native Hibernate? Has anyone been able to save state on the full-boat SBS2003 in a VM and had it still run right, week after week?

[Perryg]

If this is in production, and mission critical, I would not use the save state backup nor the snapshots. Both rely on the base image being in good shape and also the links in the xml files and all of this is very fragile (IMHO). The most reliable way to do this as far as crash recovery is to stop the guest and do a file copy of the *.vdi file. It may take a little bit of time but much better than having a lot of useless files that when restored do nothing.

[scottgus1]

I agree with you, Perry, a full shutdown is better for backups. How's about save state for battery backup action? When the power goes out, every second is of importance, and SBS2003 takes "years" to shut down, sometimes. Does anyone know if save state is dangerous to SBS, or will it live through the process?

[Perryg]

Saved state for emergencies may be your only hope if the UPS is limited in up time. I would setup a test environment with a copy of the original in a non-production machine and see what happens. It may be fine, but I have never tested such a scenario. My understanding is that it *should* work. In any case I would think it would be safer than a power down of the host with the guest still running. This can be lethal to VirtualBox XML files and to the guest.

Note: there is a condition using saved state where the time of the guest is not updated properly if you save and start within a small amount of time. This can cause timed services to become unstable due to the time not being correct. There is a fix for this but again you need to test all of this in a non-production environment.

You can read about it here Time Sync issues if during your tests the time sync is not updating properly.

[scottgus1]

Thanks, Perry, I'll do some tests on my home PC to see what happens.