Server 2008 R2 to 2012 R2 - Full Backup

Question

I have been tasked with doing an in-place upgrade of a slew of physical production Server 2008 R2 servers to Server 2012 R2. I have a single test server with 2008 R2 that has the required apps installed. When I attempted the upgrade a week ago, .NET 3.5 decided it did not want to play nice and install. I have since rebuilt the server, upgraded to 2012 r2, and verified that .NET 3.5 worked as intended.

Now I am back to having all the apps installed, and about to do the upgrade. As it is not a VM, I do not have the luxury of a VM Snapshot. What I am wondering is if I install the Windows Server Backup Feature and do a full backup to an attached hard drive that has plenty of room, will I be able to restore Server 2008 R2 from Backup once Server 2012 R2 has been installed?

Answer 1

Hi @Matt Dillon ,

Since your server is a physical server, installing the Windows Server Backup role would be a good idea indeed.
By performing a Bare Metal Recovery (Full backup) you will be able to restore your server in case anything might go wrong during the in-place upgrade, easiest is to back up the server to a network share that is accessible by your physical server.

In-place upgrades are never recommended, although still supported, but for any server, whether it's virtual or physical you should always have a backup.

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Best regards,
Leon

Answer 2

Perfect. Trust me. I have advised against the in-place upgrade several times.