Remote Storage in Win 2000 Server

There are many techniques that can be used to do efficient storage management in an enterprise. One of these techniques lets you do remote storage management from Win 2000 Server. This uses your existing DLT or any other tape drive as a virtual storage media. Windows 2000 Server runs the Remote storage service, which move infrequently accessed files to the remote storage (DLT tapes). 

When these files are needed, the Remote storage service moves them back to the local volume from the tape. So, as the name suggests, this service is useful for data that is only occasionally needed. It helps save your disk space and reduces the need to purchase additional

hard drives. 

Remote storage service automatically monitors the free disk space on the local hard drive. If the disk space drops below the specified threshold set by the Remote storage service, it moves the infrequently used files to the DLT tape. In this article, we’ll talk about how to set up Remote storage service in Win 2000 Server. 

First you must prepare the Win 2000 Server for remote storage. Check out the local storage volumes and ensure that they’re formatted in NTFS file system. If not, then you must first convert them to NTFS

using the ‘convert’ command as follows:

C:>convert /FS: NTFS

Remote storage moves infrequently accessed files to tapes, and moves them back to the local volume when they are needed

Next, check that the tape drive is attached and running on the server. You must be logged in with administrative rights in order to install and run the Remote storage services. You’ll need free media tapes and your Win 2000 Server CD handy for the installation. 

To install Remote storage service, go to Control Panel and run Add/Remove programs. Click on Add/Remove component and select Remote storage check-box and click next. Here you’ll be asked to insert your Win 2000 Server CD. Once all the required files have been copied, the system will restart. The installation creates an entry called Remote Storage under Start Menu>Programs>Administrative Tools. Run it and the remote storage wizard is launched. When you first click next, the wizard will detect compatible storage devices on your setup and check the security settings. 

You can specify the minimum percentage size that you want to set  for desired free space

Next, you need to select the volumes you want to use with remote storage. After this you must define your remote storage criteria, where three text boxes are presented. In the first text box, you need to type the minimum size in terms of percentage you want to set for ‘Desired Free space.’ If the free disk space drops below this, then remote storage will move files to the tapes. Next, you need to set the criteria for the file size ‘Larger than.’ This will move all files above this size to the tape. In the last text box, ‘Not Accessed in,’ you need to type the number of day that the files have not been accessed. This will check for the files that have not been accessed till that many days and move them to tape. 

Through the All Tasks menu, you can even manually perform certain remote tasks

When you’ve entered the storage criteria, click ‘Next’ and the wizard will ask you for the type of media you want to use for remote storage. Select media type from the media type check box. Now click Next and click Change Schedule to set the date and time that the remote storage should move files to tape and click ‘Next’ and then Finish.

Now you can configure the remote storage according to your organizational requirements. Open remote storage from Start>Programs>Administrative Tools>Remote Storage. To add more volumes to the Remote Storage, select Manage Volumes folder from Remote Storage MMC console and right click on it. Select New>Manage Volumes. Here it will run a wizard for you to add new volumes. 

Remote Storage Services also let you to include or exclude files, which are important and cannot be moved to tape like DLL files. To include or exclude files, select volume from the Remote Storage MMC console and right-click on it. Select Settings from the pop-up menu and select Include/Exclude-files tabs. Here you can specify the folder and

type of file you want to Include or exclude. 

You can even manually perform certain remote tasks. To move files to remote storage immediately, validate files or create free disk space, select volume name from Remote Storage MMC console and right on it, click All Tasks from pop-up menu and select any task mentioned above. 

Sanjay Majumder