Categories: XenServer, Physical Systems, Hyper-V, Alike v3

Introduction

Alike’s datastore, or ADS, contains all the deduplicated backup data for your installation of Alike. The main requirement for your ADS is that it must be available as a CIFS share. This share can reside on any CIFS compliant server, a NAS, or even local to the Alike Server itself. Here’s an explanation of the requirements for all three ADS options and the actions performed by the Alike installer.

ADS Requirements for a Fresh Install of Alike

If you are performing a fresh install of Alike you will prompted for the ADS location. Here, you can enter an existing CIFS share. You may also provide a local directory on the Alike server.

If you provide a local directory, Alike will attempt to share the folder you provide for you. The Alike installer will also create a local user account with full access to the ADS. This user account is used by the ABD to access the ADS during backups and restores.

Things to Keep in Mind

• If Alike attempts to create a share for you and the Alike server has multiple IP addresses, Alike will prompt you to select one of the IPs to use for the share.
• Be sure to select an IP address that the ABD/Q-Hybrid agents will be able to access.
• If Alike attempts to create a share for your local storage, it will also create a Local User account for the ABD to use in order to access the newly created share.

ADS Local Storage Requirements

Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003:

• Simple file sharing is not supported.
• Please disable simple file sharing.
• A support article on how to accomplish this is listed here.

Windows 7/2008 and up:

• File and Printer sharing must be turned on for the network profile Alike is using.

Windows 2008 and Windows 2008 R2:

• File Services Role must be installed.
• See the support article on this here.

Final Notes

Related articles:

ADS Troubleshooting Guide

How to Set Up a Local ADS

WORM Storage ADS Incompatibility

Moving and Resetting Your ADS