While performing a network evaluation for a perspective client, it came time to gather specification information from the server. Immediately noticing that Carbonite had not successfully completed a Mirror Image backup and needed to be updated, I headed to the Carbonite InfoCenter to find out what could be done. After installing the required update, I noticed that the USB 3.0 external drive was not recognized by the software. This was solved by going into Computer Management and adding a drive letter to that drive. Once recognized by Carbonite, selected that drive to be used for the Mirror Image backup but began to receive Carbonite Backup external drive errors – “Mirror Image was unable to use the selected target drive.” Took a bit of research to find out the two parts that comprised the issue.
Identifying Cause of Carbonite Backup External Drive Errors
- Found a Carbonite support article that details requirements for the Mirror Image Drive to be used. Included in the list – “RAID configuration is not supported – Carbonite currently doesn’t support creating snapshots from drives configured in a RAID array.” Since this server was configured with RAID 5 for a mix of performance and redundancy, it was not able to use the Mirror Image function of the software at all.
- Found that the clients Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials server had the Carbonite Personal Plus software installed on it. As per the Carbonite Website – “Personal Plans are not designed to support Windows Server OS.” Immediately recommended the client upgrade to the Carbonite Server Backup plan.
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