Personal Computer

To backup personal computers, Active Backup for Business Agent is required to be installed on the target personal computers. You can configure the backup tasks for personal computers on DSM. There are three backup types to protect your personal computers: bare-metal, system volume, and customized volumes.

Before You Start

Please note the following:

• Install Active Backup for Business Agent on the target device you wish to protect. You can either go to Synology Download Center or go to Active Backup for Business > PC > Add device to download the 32-bit or 64-bit installer for the device.



• Configure a Template on Active Backup for Business. Go to Settings > Template > Create to create a template or select the default template and click Edit to edit the default template.
• Configuring backup settings of a template can help apply the same backup settings to multiple devices in mass deployment. To avoid gap between deployment and protection, a default template set to protect personal computers will be listed and cannot be removed. You can always edit the default template or add other templates.
• When creating a template, you can decide the backup type, backup schedules, compression, encryption settings, and the version retention policy. The restore permission of PC backup is not adjustable. Only admin (user), administrators (group), and the logged-in account (user) owner can access the backup versions of devices.

To create a backup task:

Once the agent is installed on the personal computer and the personal computer is connected to the server, a backup task of the connected server will be created according to the matched template. It also supports creating more than one backup task to each device. To create a new task of a specific device: Go to PC, you can either start from the device view, select the target device, and then click Create to enter the task creation wizard, or go to Task List > Create, and decide which device you wish to protect later in the task creation wizard.

• Create Backup Task:

Task name: Configure the name of the task. It is suggested to have a naming pattern for faster filter/search for the task.

• Select Target Device:

This step only appears if no device is selected before clicking Create. A list of personal computers that have been connected to the server will be shown in this step.

• Backup Destination:

During package installation, a Btrfs shared folder - ActiveBackupforBusiness will be created automatically. Only Btrfs shared folder can be selected as the backup destination on the NAS.

• Select Source Type:

Three types of source are supported:

• Bare metal: The entire PC including the device settings, applications and all the files will be backed up in this mode.
• System volume: Only the system volumes will be backed up.
• Customized volume: Click Select then choose the target volume you wish to protect. USB (Flash Driver) is not supported.

Task Settings: The source data can be compressed and encrypted according to the task settings. Click Task Settings and configure your preference.

• Schedule Backup Task:
• Manual Backup: Manual Backup means one-time only backup. After creating a backup task, you can run the task by choosing to back up immediately in the last step or selecting the task then click Run now on the console.
• Scheduled Backup: Define the desired backup schedule to be a daily or only on specific days’ backup. The task can run once a day or once an hour according to the settings. 
• Select Retention Policy:

In this step, you can choose either one of the following retention policy to apply to the created task:

• Keep all versions: All the backed-up versions will be preserved.
• Apply the following methods:

Synology employs the Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) retention policy. You can configure the time ranges of backup versions to be retained for the following time ranges respectively: daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. If more than one backup version exists within a time range, only the latest one will be kept. For example, if you set a policy as Keep the latest version of the day for 1 day for the backup task which will be run every hour per day, only the version backed up at 23:00 will be kept.

You need to set at least one policy if you check Apply the following methods. Please note that every configured policy overlaps with each other. For example, if you would like to set the policy as keeping daily backup versions in the first three months, weekly backup versions in the second three months, and monthly backup versions in the third three months. Please tick the checkboxes and insert the numbers as the below picture displays.



The duration of 24 weeks includes the previous daily backup versions of 90 days, and the first weekly backup will be equal to the seventh daily backup. The duration of 9 months also includes the previous weekly backup versions of 24 weeks and daily backup versions of 90 days, and the first monthly backup will be equal to the fourth weekly backup.



• Backup now:

The wizard allows an immediate backup regardless of the schedule.

To edit one or more backup tasks:

It supports both editing tasks individually and in batch. Other than backup destination, most of the settings can be modified. However, in batch edit, the task name as well as the destination cannot be changed.

To avoid mistakenly change the settings that varied across different tasks, the settings are set to remain as they are by default. Tick the checkbox of the section that you wish to change when batch editing is required.

To delete one or more backup tasks:

Go to Task List to select the task, and then click Delete. After confirming the action, the selected task will be removed while the data will remain in the backed up destination.

The device would still remain connected to the server even when no task attached to it. This device can always be found on the Device List, and you can create a task for the device at any time.

To enable Changed Block Tracking (CBT) technology:

To streamline the backup process, Changed Block Tracking (CBT) technology is adopted when backing up personal computers by default. To ensure CBT is functioning well, please make sure Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) on each protected device has been turned on.

The CBT technology adopted in Active Backup for Business leverages VSS to take snapshots for devices and identify the changed block between snapshots. VSS belongs to Microsoft's built-in technology, and thus it can avoid performance interference while Active Backup for Business is performing the CBT technology. After the first full backup, the CBT technology allows each device to transfer only the changed block to your NAS. Therefore, it helps you to save the bandwidth resource and speeds up the process of backing up.

To update the version of the agent on personal computer(s):

Agent can be updated remotely from the server. Click on More, and choose to Update Agent.

To have a personal computer backed up as a physical server:

You may change the device type and have a personal computer protected as a physical server when the personal computer needs to be backed up and perform Instant Restore to VMware or Instant Restore to Synology Virtual Machine Manager (VMM).

1. Select a device and click More.
2. Click Change device type.

Restore Personal Computer

• Granular (file/folder level) restore: Personal computer backup supports granular (file and folder-level) restore through Active Backup for Business Portal. Admins are able to delegate the restore permission to each end user through DSM Control Panel. For more information, please refer to the help article: Active Backup for Business Portal.
• Bare metal restore: Bare metal restore is available with a recovery media. To restore the entire device or the backed-up volume, please create a recovery media in advance. You can refer this creation guide to learn how to use Active Backup for Business Recovery Media Creator to create a media automatically or create a customized media.

You can download Synology Active Backup Recovery Media Creator in Download Center.