backing up solutions

[bradleyh10]

Hi,
The company i work for asked me sort out their backing up and make it a lot easier than it is!

basically it is a small company, with 7 computer including 3 laptops that get taking home most nights.

currently we just back up now and again, manually with an ext HDD
but this isn't really good enough.

But im not sure what to do, i feel that uploading data to a backup website would be the safest, in case of fire or something. but then none of the staff will want to be sitting around waiting for their data to upload, each computer will have at least a GB each. As we're an email heavy company. so maybe some sort of sync software as well?

but ultimately i was just curious to what other companies do in this situation as it must be a common place, esp with laptops going off site.

in my head i was thinking and that if we had a backup server, on site, then if everybody leaves there computers on when they go home, then it syncs to the server, and then the software switches the computer off. the server then uploads the data over night to the internet... but then i couldn't think how to account for the laptops.

any ideas??

Thanks for your help

Bradley

 

[ddrueding]

With small companies, things tend to go "fast and loose" with regard to backups. Congrats on trying to get a handle on things. There are two 2 methods that I can see working in this scenario:

1. Have a server in the office store a backup of everything, have the laptops sync to it during lunch, the rest can do it overnight. Have this machine log onto Amazon's S3 service and upload the backup using Jungle Disk. Don't forget to encrypt your data before sticking it on the internet!

2. Have the primary location of the data be on the server, and if the laptop users need access, they can VPN into the office and access it remotely. The rest same as above.

The advantage to method #2 is that there is no sensitive data on the laptops, so a stolen laptop doesn't mean stolen data. The advantage to method #1 is that it is less complex, and allows users to work on data even when they are offline (airplaine, etc).

 

[Bozo]

Install Acronis on each computer. Install another computer with a large enough hard drive to hold all your data. (no need for a "server"). Aconis has a built in scheduling application. Set it up to image the entire computer (or just the important data) to the new computer. Maybe have Acronis run at lunch time? Near the end of the day, copy all the backups from the new computer to a USB hard drive and take it home with you.

Bozo :joker:

 

[Clocker]

If you are using Windows, Windows Home Server seems like it might be worth looking into for you. Works great with my desktop and laptop and it's efficient with storage space since only one copy of a file is saved on the server even if there are backups of every machine on your network on it (that all contain that file). Theoretically, you can backup many machines on it and, if each machine had the same files, the space used on the server would only be the amount that would be taken up by one machine.

For simplicity don't bother with the file serving feature that had data integrity issues in some configurations, just use the automated backup process that backs up entire volumes efficiently & automatically (in the backgound & during the day if you want to account for the laptops).

 

[Handruin]

You could also try something like Mozy. I will disclaim that I work for the parent company (EMC), but I have no involvement with Mozy other than as a home user.

For work, I keep nothing of value on my actual laptop hard drive. We all get a corporate network drives to save document or various other network shares to place things. Those network shares are backed up in extravagant ways, but I'm guessing that this won't suffice for you because we have far more employees to serve.

You could do something similar like clocker suggested with the windows home server and just make sure that is backed up with some off site data.

 

[Clocker]

Damn if I had something more than 650K upload speed I would do and offline backup too.

 

[bradleyh10]

Hi Guys,
thanks for your reply!

i've decided to put forward these two options for my boss

#1 (cheap)
Buy a networkable hard drive and install some sync software and get everyone to run it before they turn there computer off, then the boss take the hard drive home with him.

#2 (not so cheap)
Is do as suggested, buy a computer with loads of hard drive space, used software to sync after work then during the night get this computer to upload to a amazon S3.

Now someone recommended Acronis, is this the best software to install on all the pcs? i keen for it to have the feacture of turning the pc off once its backup, has anyone heard of a feature like this anywhere? or can you get some other software to turn a computer off? ... im just thinking of the electricity bill!

thanks again for the help
Bradley

 

[Howell]

http://www.vembu.com/storegrid/backup-solutions.html

Similar to Mozy apparently.

 

[Howell]

http://www.vembu.com/storegrid/backup-solutions.html

Similar to Mozy apparently.

FWIW, we resell their online backup service.

 

[mangyDOG]

Now someone recommended Acronis, is this the best software to install on all the pcs? i keen for it to have the feacture of turning the pc off once its backup, has anyone heard of a feature like this anywhere? or can you get some other software to turn a computer off? ... im just thinking of the electricity bill!

thanks again for the help
Bradley

I use Acronis extensively for my backup requirements and have written a batch file that adds flexibility to the default TrueImage scheduling.

To use the batch file:

1) open TrueImage and create two scheduled tasks (set to run manually later) the first is for a full backup of everything you want, the backup file should be called Backup01.tib and remember to use UNC paths if you are saving to a network drive. The second task is identical to the first except it is an incremental backup only.

2) in your "Program Files" directory, create a directory called "Backup", save the batch file script (below) into it. In your "Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Acronis\Scripts" there should be two random file name .tis files, copy these to your new "Backup" directory, rename the older one (look at the time stamp) to "TrueImage_FullBackup.tis" and the newer one to "TrueImage_IncrementBackup.tis"

3) modify the batch file as desired to suit your backup location & number of incremental backups you want.

4) send a shortcut of the batch file to the desktop if you want to manually run the process or add it to your windows scheduled tasks.

Here is the batch code, paste it into notepad and save it as "TrueImage_Backup.bat" in your Program Files\Backup directory:

StartScript (Copy below this line):

@echo off
ECHO.
ECHO Check number of files to prevent exceeding available space.
ECHO.

SET COUNTER=0

REM * First get a list of the files
REM change the location below to suit you.
dir /B /A:-D \\mybackuplocation\ > c:\dirs.txt

cd /D C:\

REM * Next loop over the text file and rename them
FOR /F %%i IN (c:\dirs.txt) DO (set /A COUNTER += 1)

echo %COUNTER%

REM * Clean up
del dirs.txt

REM Change the number 6 to what ever you want the number of incremental backups to be
REM before a new full backup is made.

if %COUNTER% == 0 goto NEWFULL
if %COUNTER% LSS 6 goto INCREMENT
if %COUNTER% == 6 goto NEWFULL


:NEWFULL

ECHO Creating a full new Backup!
ECHO Deleting all the old ones!!
ECHO This might take a while!!!

REM delete all the old backups
REM you could change this command to a rename if you have the storage space

del \\mybackuplocation\*.tib

REM you will need to check the location of your TrueImage folder. It is probably either
REM the one below or the same location but TrueImageHome
c:
cd "\Program Files\Common Files\Acronis\TrueImage"

REM you may need to rename the program below to TrueImageHomeService.exe
TrueImageService.exe /script: "C:\Program Files\Backup\TrueImage_FullBackup.tis"

goto END


:INCREMENT

ECHO Creating an incremental backup, shouldn't be long.

REM you will need to check the location of your TrueImage folder. It is probably either
REM the one below or the same location but TrueImageHome
c:
cd "\Program Files\Common Files\Acronis\TrueImage"

REM you may need to rename the program below to TrueImageHomeService.exe
TrueImageService.exe /script: "C:\Program Files\Backup\TrueImage_IncrementBackup.tis"


goto END



:END

ECHO All done, shuting down, see ya.

REM REM out the line below if you don't want the computer to turn off.
shutdown -s -t 0

CLS

EndScript: Copy above this line.

Hope that helps
cheers,
mangyDOG