And yet another way to think of it...

A stateful system is focused, at least partially, on saving to and retrieving from storage. It is a "data at rest" system.

A stateless system is focused, essentially entirely, on data "in flight". Processing of data moving from one point to another.

@black3dynamite said in Should I backup my file server VM or just the files?:

@scottalanmiller said in Should I backup my file server VM or just the files?:

@jaredbusch said in Should I backup my file server VM or just the files?:

Scott likes to talk like everyone uses state systems when that is far from the case.

Scott likes to talk like everyone should use state systems, which is nearly always the case.

But even if you don't, if you have automated rebuild and install scripts, or use cloud computing, you rarely want to restore the whole thing rather than just the data. It's way more than just state systems. We've been doing this since long before state systems were a thing.

With a stand-alone windows file server is not so bad redeploying it with the help of powershell. But it’s so different compare to Linux.

Yes, much more work for sure. But no matter what OS you use, no matter what your backup situation is, you should have a rapid new deployment system to rebuild systems whether it is script, state, or whatever.