[list] [ale] Need advice on home back-up solution

[Greg]

Since the $/GB factor seems in many respects to favor hard drives, why don't
you install a removable hard drive bay and buy another HD ?  That is what I
did for a friend recently.  I installed 2 hard drives in a software RAID
mirror configuration.  When he leaves for the weekend, he powers down the
file server, takes out the 2nd HD and places it into a fire proof safe.  The
removable hard drive bays are about $15 to $35 in cost.  They use a key to
lock down the HD upon insertion.  The solution seems to fulfill all of his
needs, which seem to reflect yours.

HTH,

Greg

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org]On Behalf Of Bill
> Hamilton
> Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2003 9:00 AM
> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> Subject: Re: [list] [ale] Need advice on home back-up solution
>
>
> Bill Hamilton wrote:
>
> > I have a RedHat 9 GNU/Linux system with a new 80GB hard drive and
> > several Windows 98SE/2000/XP machines at home in which I need to
> > automatically backup user created information.  This inludes Microsoft
> > office files, digital pictures (scattered throughout the hard drive),
> > browser favorites and web autofill forms (RoboForm or something like
> > that...my wife depends on it...I don't know).
> >
> > I need a solution (probably made up of OpenSource/Free Software and
> > cmd/batch/windows scripting scripts) where each of my various
> > Microsoft based operating systems routinely backup user created
> > information to an ftp or smb server (GNU/Linux box listed above).  I
> > do not have a tape drive on each machine nor a CD Burner (however the
> > newest upstairs Sony Viao does have a DVD-R/RW burner so I could
> > weekly pull these archives off of the Linux server and burn to DVD as
> > long as these archives are less than 4.7GB each).  I do have a spare
> > 17GB hard drive and I was thinking of putting this also in the
> > GNU/Linux box as a mirrored partition just in case...probably a good
> > idea before I go too far down the road doing work on this fresh
> > install of RH9.
> >
> > What does the ALE crowd recommend?
>
> The trouble with this group is that you guys (and gals) are too
> helpful.  So I am posting this follow-up question.
>
> rsync and amanda are excellent ideas (I just read up on them).  I'm sure
> there are hundreds of jewels like these out there.  So useful and yet
> unkown (like the Vim asterik '*' command).
>
> What  tape drive do you recommend.  Needs to be inexpensive, use
> inexpensive tapes, compatible with GNU/Linux (RedHat9).  Actually, I can
> search google for models but I'd like to know more about the specs
> (scsi? ide? floppy?) that I should look for.  I would also be interested
> in any personal experiences.  Once again, this is for home back-up.
>
> -Bill
>
> Is there an inexpensive tape
>
>
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