PowerQuest V2i Protector - Product Review

By Mark Pells 
May 4, 2003

Most people have had unpleasant experiences with backups.  Either data has been lost or backup software has not performed correctly.  Backup software is often complicated, unreliable, and only one small part of a costly tape solution.  Disaster recovery and the ability to back up open files require expensive additional software.

PowerQuest addresses many of these issues with their V2i Protector product.

Image Backups are an alternative to traditional file- based backup software such as Veritas Backup Exec or CA Arcserve.  Image backups operate below the file system.  Image backup software is extremely fast and can backup open files.  As a result of operating below the file system, the image backup usually has to backup an entire disk volume.

I have used image backup solutions in the past and have found them to be a powerful solution.  I found image backups were almost always successful and the products required almost no maintenance.  I have used Stac Replica to backup Windows NT 4 and Netware 4 servers and Ghost Enterprise Edition 7.5 to backup Windows 2000 servers.  Stac Replica was never developed beyond Windows NT 4 and Ghost requires downtime as it only runs from DOS.  V2i Protector goes far beyond both of these products.

Comparison of Image Backups versus Traditional Tape Backups

V2i Protector uses PowerQuest’s Virtual Volume Imaging (V2i) technology to create a snapshot of the server as it exists at the instant a backup begins.  This image is a low-level image of all data on the hard disk at the sector level.  Only sectors containing data are backed up.  The data is compressed and written to a backup file.

V2i Protector monitors the file system for any changes.  Any changes are written to the hard disk as normal.  V2i Protector saves the old, overwritten data to a temporary space.  The old data is written to the backup image.  This ensures that you have a snapshot of the server as it existed when the backup began.

V2i Protector has a built-in scheduler facility and provides e-mail notifications upon the completion or failure of a backup.

Restoring files is done from within Windows.  A backup image file can be mounted as a drive letter, and then files can simply be copied out of the image.  Disaster Recovery is performed by booting the server from the V2i Protector CD.  This will boot the server into the PowerQuest Recovery Environment, from which you can browse the network and choose an image to restore.

V2i Protector does not eliminate tape backups or other off-line backup methods.  It is still critical to have offsite backup storage.  Enterprise customers will use tape solutions, while small businesses may use DVD burners.

V2i Protector can be used with Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Advanced Server.  The minimum requirements are a 133Mhz processor and 256M RAM.

Installing V2i Protector is simple and fast.  You will be required to reboot your server.  You select which tools you want to install:

I chose to install both the backup agent and management tools on my test server.

Next you will be prompted to choose which options to install:

I chose to install all options.  The package does not take much disk space and I prefer to have all the tools and documentation available on the server.

You then provide an account under which the backup agent will run:

You will supply the owner and serial number and you will need to accept the license agreement when it is displayed.

The next stage is a very important message that should not be ignored:

The text of the message is:

In particular, if you happen to boot an NT4 system with this CD, you will be prompted to upgrade the hard disk to NTFS 3.1.  If the NT4 system has Service Pack 4 or later, it can be upgraded safely.  Before performing any such upgrade, you should backup the system.

Next you will be given the option to run the V2i Security Configuration Tool.  This tool allows you to select which users can access the backup agent. You will then be prompted to reboot, which you should do.  This completes the installation.

Backups are performed with the V2i Protector management console, as seen below:

The management console allows you to backup volumes as well as restore non-system volumes. 

To perform a backup, you select a volume and click the Create Image icon.  You are prompted for a description of the image and then to schedule the image:

The scheduling options are quite simple.  Keep in mind that image backups always perform a full backup.  There are no complicated tape rotations of full and incremental or differential tape backups.  The only option that I would like to see here is a weekday backup to create backups on the 5 weekdays when businesses are typically open.

Next you will select the destination of the backup:

V2i protector must store its backups on a hard drive, whether it is local or a share on another computer.  The images cannot be written directly to a removable media.  In the above image I have selected to store the images in a share on another server.  Since this is a scheduled backup, it will automatically generate recurring names.  If this was a manual backup you would only be prompted for a destination and file name.

You are now prompted for advanced options:

In my testing I found the standard compression to provide a good balance of performance and compression.  By default the verify option is selected – as it should be!  Since this is a recurring backup I can select how many images I want to keep.  This prevents the backup repository from running out of space.  This option will delete old images to make room for new images.

There is also an option to divide image files into sections.  This makes it easy to copy backups to CD or DVD media for off-site storage.

Next is the command files menu:

You can specify scripts or programs to execute at different points of the backup.  A common use would be to prepare a SQL server for backup and then set it back to normal operation when the backup is complete.

In the V2i Protector Management Console there is also an Agent Properties icon.  The Agent Properties allow you to set a default backup destination as well as e-mail notifications:

When you enter the e-mail information, a test message is automatically sent.

This is a sample e-mail notification for a successful backup:

With traditional file backups, restoring files requires dealing with cataloging systems that can be complicated and are prone to failure.  Restoring files with V2i Protector is simply elegant.

Restores are performed with the PowerQuest Image Browser.  When launched, the browser looks like this:

You then browse to and select the backup image you want to restore from.

At this point you can fully access the files with the image browser:

The real elegance of the solution is when, in the left pane you click to select the image file, then on the file menu you choose "Mount Volume."  You will be presented with this dialog:

This will mount the image as a drive letter on the computer.  You can even share the image so it is accessible from other computers!

Here it is in Explorer, after I have shared the mounted image on drive letter E:

You can see on the E: drive is the entire contents of the backed up server drive!

The PowerQuest Recovery Environment (PQRE)is accessed by booting the server with the V2i protector CD.  The CD will boot the server into the PQRE, which is based on Windows PE.

You will see a screen that looks familiar to Windows 2000 and Windows XP users:

As you can see, you are given the option to supply third-party storage drivers during the PQRE boot process.

Note: Make your life easy and use a good brand name NIC in your server.  I prefer Intel NICs.  These NIC are very high quality and have excellent driver support.   In choosing Intel or 3COM you will most likely avoid any driver issues when it is time to restore!

After several minutes the PQRE menu will appear:

Within the PQRE environment you have full access to your network as well as the server hard drives.  The Image Browser can be used to restore files and directories, just as the Image Browser in Windows.

There are a number of utilities provided:

The utilities are:

Note: after making partition changes with PTEDIT32.EXE – such as deleting existing partitions, you need to reboot before attempting a restore.  The OS is unaware of the changes until a reboot occurs.

PowerQuest has gone to great lengths to make disaster recovery nearly effortless.  V2i Protector fully supports bare metal restores: restoring to a blank unformatted, un-partitioned drive.  No preparation is needed.

Click on the Recovery Wizard to perform a disaster recovery.  After an introduction screen you are prompted to browse to find an image.  In this example I have browsed out onto my network:

When I go into a share on the server Belldandy, I am prompted for a user name and password to gain access to the server.  Then I select the image I want to restore:

Next you are prompted to select a destination:

Then you are prompted for restore options:

The options are common sense.  During the recovery no new bad sectors can be encountered.  If bad sectors are encountered, you should partition and format (not quick format!) the partition beforehand.  The format process will mark the sectors as bad, which will allow the recovery to succeed.

The test environment consisted of a test server named Mahoro and a server named Belldandy that stored the backup images.  The network is a switched 100Mbps Fast Ethernet network

During testing I performed 10 image backups, both manual and scheduled

The following timed backup tests were performed:

Note: the server contains 2174MB of data

In the last timed test, I chose to create a segmented backup in 650Meg segments, suitable for archiving to a CD Burner.  This test failed.  I attempted two more times to create a backup image with 650 Meg segments, and three times to create a backup image with 700 Meg segments.  Every time the backup failed when it tried to complete the first 650 Meg segment and start creating the second 650M segment.  The problem is being investigated with PowerQuest

Out of ten successful backups, I encountered a problem with one.  The backup succeeded, and it verified successfully. I was able to restore files using the image browser and verify the image files integrity.  I was able to successfully perform a disaster recovery.  Unfortunately when I rebooted the server after the restore, the server would generate a BSOD during startup.  I reproduced the problem three times.  All other image backups and restores were successful. 

Although only one image was “bad,” it is a point of concern.  No errors were given, and I was able to restore files and validate the backup using the Image Browser.  I only discovered the backup was bad when I attempted to perform a disaster recovery

Summary

PowerQuest V2i Protector is a very promising product that is easy to recommend.  It has built-in open file management and bare metal disaster recovery.  These features are very costly options for traditional backup solutions.  The ease of restoring files is fantastic compared to more complicated restore processes involving tape.

It is important to understand that most businesses will still need an additional backup process.  Enterprise customers will want to store the images on tape for offsite storage.  Still, there are significant benefits gained with V2i protector in conjunction with tape solutions.

V2i protector is especially appealing for small businesses.  Traditional tape backup solutions require a budget that is difficult for many small businesses.  V2i protector can be part of a comprehensive backup solution at a greatly reduced cost.  Many small businesses could achieve a very cost-effective solution by having a workstation with a large hard drive to hold 10 or 15 days backups and a DVD burner for offsite backups. 

My only concern is that its $695.00 price tag will hinder its acceptance in the small business market.  I would like to see a small business edition, with restrictions, at a lower price

-- Mark Pells   

Mark Pells is a technologist at 1 Call Service,™ a technology consulting firm in the Dallas, Texas area with 10+ years experience in all areas of information technology.

He may be contacted by e-mail: Click to e-mail Mark Pells

In June 2003, PowerQuest announced a desktop edition of V2i Protector, Version 2, which retails for $79.95.
NTPCUG members can purchase this software for $40.00.