How do I make a backup of a live server?
- by Jurily
At my new job, I have a production server with the following qualities:
Windows (XP I think), ancient hardware
Absolutely vital database
No backups whatsoever
Everyone in the company has full admin rights, the passwords are stored in a .txt on the global share
No installers, except for the OS
The machine itself is sitting on a wooden shelf 5 feet above the ground against an external wall with frequent truck traffic on the other side; the shelf is already bent from the constant load
Hasn't been rebooted in $DEITY knows how long, my predecessor wasn't even sure if it would survive it
UPS is installed, but since everything is hooked up to it, it would last 10 minutes tops
No spare parts or hardware budget
How do I make a full backup with minimal impact on the server? I'm not sure how close it is to a total meltdown. For all I know, plugging in a USB stick could kill the company, and of course it will be all my fault, since "it was running fine before you touched it".
The ideal solution would be a VM, so I have a test environment as well (separate of course).
