Backups – those wonderful things that come to the rescue when things go wrong. They are very easy to take (if you decide to take them) but how often do you check them. Be honest with yourself here.
Anyway as part of my routine server maintenance I tend to take system images. This means that if something goes wrong, like for example a faulty hard drive, I can quickly recover the system. Every tech will have their own personal choice on what software to use for taking images and I am no different. My software of choice is Clonezilla and there are multiple reasons for this, mainly I love opensource software and that it is bloody good software. I have written an earlier tutorial for anyone who wants to learn how to use Clonezilla.
Once I have the backed up image what is the best way to check them? Again everyone will have their own way of doing this and mine? Turn it into a virtual machine!!
The theory goes something like this. If the system image can be booted up as a virtual machine then it is not corrupt and should also boot up on the original hardware and also similar hardware. This has been tested using Oracle Virtualbox on numerous occasions and I can vouch that it works.
The steps are:
1. Take your image using Clonezilla and save to an external hard drive
2. Create a virtual machine using Oracle Virtualbox (this should also work with VMWare Workstation) and make sure that the hard drive size is exactly the same as the original.
3. Restore the cloned system to the virtual hard drive.
I am not saying this is the best way to check your images but rather a different way that has served me well in the past.
About the Author
Hi I’m Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows, Mac and Linux based IT Support to small businesses in Stirling, Alloa and Falkirk.
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