Files that are compressed by NTFS compression may not be backed up correctly by WHS
The WHS team has solved a software bug that can affect Files on a home computer that are compressed by using NTFS compression may not be backed up correctly by Windows Home Server. The Knowledge Base (KB) article explains that if you try to restore a compressed file from a WHS backup, the file may be corrupted. This is because under certain circumstances, a compressed file may consume more disk space than the original file size. Some sections of a file may use less disk space after NTFS compression. However, other sections of a file may use more disk space after NTFS compression. If the compressed file uses more disk space than the original file, a small amount of data at the end of the file may be lost during the backup process. This data loss results in a corrupted file or a partially-corrupted file, depending on the corresponding file types. The file types that may be affected by this issue include, but are not limited to, CAB, ZIP, JPG, and PNG.
An update package is available for download as well as via Windows Update that corrects this issue but remember that backups that were created before the update was installed may still contain corrupted files if the backups used NTFS compression.
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What is not very clear is that this refers only to WHS backups made of computers that are already using NTFS compression on its drive or drives. These computers need this fix.
Bleh, another corruption issue, which I’m sure will be milked by our trolling friends to no end. At least this one would be very, extremely rare, and a fix is already out.
@Dave
Microsoft KN 946676 has no resolution, despite having been reported since last year! Just how many design flaws should be in WHS that customers need and want to purchase data corruption design flaws?
Do you wear your seatbeats because it’s rare to have an accident or would you expect customers to just live with data corruption even if, as you seem to think, how rare it happens, despiting it happening, as it has been to WHS customers?
There shouldn’t be data corruption in a server product, especially two of them… That really speaks to how untested, unproven and untrustworthy WHS is all about. Especially, since it KB 946676 has been around since last year and remains to be unresolved.
What is being done to provide WHS customer relief for the serious data corruption design flaw here?
WHS is trustworthy for me. I did a full restore of a Vista machine a few weeks ago simply to upgrade my hard drive. I’ve also recovered several Exchange email files. WHS has been well worth the money for me. And there are countless other stories just like mine. No data corruption for me, and likewise for more than 99% of WHS users in general.
Anyway, t-minus one month until you guys run out of things to say. Because as you know (and apparently you keep forgetting to mention), 946676 will be fixed publicly in June.