backup of company data

[Dugjak]

Have a small company network with 5 computers:
2 with XP Pro
2 with SP Home
1 with Win Me

All computers are used daily however most shared files are stored on
Computer #1, althought each of the other computers has files that need to be
backed up, in addition to emails, favourites, address books etc.

I have just purchased a 80gb external hard disk for backup purposes. Have
previously been backing up to rewritable CD's using Careful Backup (creates
zip files), but found this fairly slow and sometimes it did not work (eg
when the network does not have much inter computer activity and therefore
Careful Backup could not see the other computers and therefore did not
backup their data files.

What backup program do you recommend? (Standard Windows XP with scheduler,
Nortons, other etc).

What backup methodology is recommended for a situation described above - eg
all files, modified files etc.

Regards

Doug

 

[Dugjak]

Oops, XP Home (not SP Home!)

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Have a small company network with 5 computers:
2 with XP Pro
2 with SP Home
1 with Win Me

All computers are used daily however most shared files are stored on
Computer #1, althought each of the other computers has files that
need to be backed up, in addition to emails, favourites, address
books etc.

I have just purchased a 80gb external hard disk for backup purposes.
Have previously been backing up to rewritable CD's using Careful
Backup (creates zip files), but found this fairly slow and sometimes
it did not work (eg when the network does not have much inter
computer activity and therefore Careful Backup could not see the
other computers and therefore did not backup their data files.

What backup program do you recommend? (Standard Windows XP with
scheduler, Nortons, other etc).

What backup methodology is recommended for a situation described
above - eg all files, modified files etc.

Regards

Doug

You need a solution that is focused on this type of backup. See the
following link for one.

Dantz:
http://www.dantz.com/


--
Ronnie Vernon
Microsoft MVP-Windows Shell/User

Please reply to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
http://www.dts-l.org
http://www.mvps.org

 

[Doug McKean]

Thank you for the rapid reply. Have just had a look at Retrospect Pro and it
seems like it would be a suitable solution.

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Thank you for the rapid reply. Have just had a look at Retrospect Pro
and it seems like it would be a suitable solution.

Your Welcome. We use this at my office and it has been very stable and
solved some tough problems in the past.
--
Ronnie Vernon
Microsoft MVP-Windows Shell/User

Please reply to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
http://www.dts-l.org
http://www.mvps.org

 

[Al Dykes]

Have a small company network with 5 computers:
2 with XP Pro
2 with SP Home
1 with Win Me

All computers are used daily however most shared files are stored on
Computer #1, althought each of the other computers has files that need to be
backed up, in addition to emails, favourites, address books etc.

I have just purchased a 80gb external hard disk for backup purposes. Have
previously been backing up to rewritable CD's using Careful Backup (creates
zip files), but found this fairly slow and sometimes it did not work (eg
when the network does not have much inter computer activity and therefore
Careful Backup could not see the other computers and therefore did not
backup their data files.

What backup program do you recommend? (Standard Windows XP with scheduler,
Nortons, other etc).

What backup methodology is recommended for a situation described above - eg
all files, modified files etc.

Regards

Doug

I assume you meant XP/home for SP/home

I think you can do a lot with ntbackup, included in XP (you might have
to install it on your home machiines.)

You can make a network share and run scripts on teh XP machines
to do full or partial backups to it.

IMHO you should put the backup share on the XP/pro (1st choice) or
XP/home machine. Don't put it on the ME machiine. You can run a
script that runs ntbackup in the middle of the night.

Make the file system the share is on NTFS, and set the compression
attribute on the folder that is shared. That way all the backups
you do will automatically get compressed.

A full ntbackup (including System Information) is sufficient to
reinstall a system completely from a total failure. It's a bit of a
PITA, but I've done it. I like differential backups with a periodic
full backup. It's a reasonable compromise between easy of recovery,
disk space, and speed.

I'd got for a bigger disk for the backup share.

If your historical backups are important to you get a second big disk,
put it on a second XP machine and periodicaly copy all the backups
from the backup share to it. If the backup data is really important
(it 7 year tax data) plan to buy a new disk every quarter and copying
all the data to it and storing it off-site. The details of automating
this are not hard, but beyond a quick answer.


ME ? I suggest you upgrade to XP and use the same ntbackup script
you use on the other machines. Short of that, make a folder
on the backup server and use XCOPY, or whatever passes
for backup software in ME.