Backups

[EricE]

Some backup thoughts:

As a grizzled sys admin friend of mine used to say - Backup is really misnamed. Backing up isn't the important part - it should be called Restore since that's what really matters

So with that, test your backups! Do a restore now and then and make sure your just not "going through the motions" - before it's too late!

For backing up individual workstations, look at Windows Home Server. You can get them cheap and they are easy to set up and expand or you can get the OEM license and load it on your own hardware. Old PC's you don't use any more work great for this as WHS has pretty sparse requirements. WHS will also handle patches and virus updates. Once you have all the PC's on your network backing up to WHS you just backup *it* up like any other server.

If your not using something like WHS to back up all your clients, and you have laptop users get them a Seagate Replica hard drive. The Replica comes with software that takes continuous snap shots of their hard drive (much like Apple's Time Machine). I use one with my work laptop and it's fantastic. It's drop dead simple to install and as long as you have it plugged in, it's protecting you. It keeps a complete history of all changes of your files until it runs out of space - then the oldest versions start falling off as you create more data. I have the 500GB version and my laptop hard drive is only 160GB - based on my usage I think I will have at least two years of history/versions of all my files!

If you have a Mac and you aren't using Time Machine, you should be Time Capsule's or old G4 Mini's with some extra disk attached and shared out are great over the network wireless backup solutions for portable Mac's.

Drobo's are great. I use mine for backups (make sure you look at TimeTamer if you have a Mac), as well as critical files. The new Drobo Pro is awesome storage expansion for a server - Windows and Mac's can talk to it via iSCSI. While it's not a backup solution per se, it does provide hardware redundancy and protection against hardware failure. It's far easier to configure and maintain then traditional RAID and it supports super easy expansion through thin provisioning (basically formatting your disk for more space then is physically there). Thin provisioning was, until Drobo, almost exclusively an expensive enterprise storage feature.

Finally, off-site commercial over the Internet backup solutions can be a great mix. I use BackBlaze personally and I'm looking for one that will work with our SBS box at the church - the extra peace of mind is worth the pretty reasonable monthly cost. If you are worried about privacy, they all let you set up your own private key to encrypt your data and ensure you are the only one with access to it.

[nancy86]

Very useful information's, thanx bro.