Mysteron has mentioned this in a nearby thread re WHS on MS connect - but I just might pop this up for people observing rather than using the beta software.
Here's a snippet from he email from connect:
"....We also wanted you to be aware of changes we made in the RC release that will impact you if you have large amounts of data that you do not have alternate backups of. In the RC the default option for Server Setup is going to be "New Installation." The effect of this is you will not be able to easily upgrade from Beta 2/CTP to RC or RTM. This is going to be painful for some of you who have large data sets and we apologize up front for that. However, the changes we made were essential to ensuring a great user experience for the product moving forward and as beta testers we are sure you can understand.
For most of you, moving from Beta 2 or the CTP to the RC will involve backing up any data you don't already have stored somewhere else and then copying it back on after you have "clean" installed the RC. If you have followed our guidance that you have backups of anything you were storing on the Beta or CTP you will have another copy of all of your data somewhere else anyway so the initial step of copying data off of your old installation should involve only recent changes and thus a small amount of data.
Server Recovery (the mechanism used to recover a Windows Home Server when the primary drive has failed and replaced) will be a choice in the setup UI in the RC and RTM. However, using this as a way of "upgrading" from Beta 2 or the CTP to RC is not officially supported. There are significant known issues (e.g. due to a bug in the CTP, using Server Recovery to move to RC or RTM will result in a loss of all Home Computer backups and any non-duplicated shared folders may or may not be preserved). We strongly recommend that you clean-install the RC.
We know this is going to be a painful situation for some of you. We tried to make it clear in our documentation and messaging that you should always have backups of any data you are storing on Windows Home Server during the beta and we also were very clear that while we would try to enable an easy upgrade path we could not promise it. We also know that some of you have very large data sets where having another backup is practically impossible and/or the act of copying such a data set is extremely time consuming (our instrumentation tells us that one of you has over 6.5TB of data!). However, based on beta testing feedback we determined that we had no choice but to make some changes to the system that broke the easy upgrade path. We appreciate your feedback as beta testers and thank you for your understanding and continued support.
At this point we *can* confidently say that we will support upgrading from the RC to the RTM version.
Thanks again for all of your hard efforts and contributions to making the Windows Home Server Product the best product possible.
Kevin Beares
Windows Home Server Community Lead"
Im glad I only have about 200gbs(out of the 2.25TB) on there atm ! Im also glad I, not really using the backup functionality purely because I was suspicious of this type of thing happenning
You'll see me confusedly wondering in another thread if these (beta) backups will be of any use in subsequent betas or release version
I still dont understand why anyone would throw 6TB on a beta ! Its a BETA! Im not a network or server expert by any stretch and even I figured that out... perhaps he wanted to stress test it ??
ah well, I think it means for those happy to keep playing, the CTP will get them to November, but for those a bit mroe serious about purchasing, an RC>RTM progression seems more likely.
astro
