[ale] Low-end tapedrives for SOHO environment

[Greg]

I use at home a box with a lot of space for hd's and software RAID 5 for my
primary house weekly backups.  All pc's on the internal network have a nite
to backup.  On my personal pc I bought a board that supports a mirror'd disk
array (2).  This is for hd failure, and not human error (erasing files) or
software error (bad files to begin with).  CVS/Subversion would take care of
the human error.  MD5 checksums when available would take care of the
second.  I set up my Win2k main box (what I am using now) to backup my Data,
Programs (downloaded stuff mainly in zip formats), and My Documents to the
RAID array, which is on SAMBA and ran by Libranet (Debian derivative) and to
do so every Sat nite.  Every now and then I will use Norton Ghost to burn
cd's of my main box (takes about 15 of them) so that I can do a full install
with the exception of my Data and Programs partitions (which are on the RAID
array).

For the church, I would suggest a hd (mirror #1), a caddy (mirror #2), and
samba for a backup server.  Backup every nite with a cron job.  That is the
cheapest, except for perhaps a cd burner.

For your wife and son, I would suggest building a box with a lot of hd's,
software RAID 5, and running samba.  On Friday nite have your wife leave it
running, and use a MS program (or samba's backup) to backup her full disk to
the RAID box.  On Sat, have your son's laptop do this.  I would be very wary
of MS Backup - it is not dependable, somthing to do with keeping the
original config file for the backup.  Norton Ghost or something else is more
dependable (voice of experience).

I keep my servers pretty much -stable OpenBSD xxx (xxx = latest version)
with only few changes (why I like OpenBSD - secure by default). So a version
upgrade is possible with very little to do, with the exception of the
mailserver, which runs qmail.

Well, good luck and tell us what you end up using.

Greg




> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org]On Behalf Of
> griffisb at bellsouth.net
> Sent: Saturday, March 20, 2004 8:22 AM
> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> Subject: Re: RE: [ale] Low-end tapedrives for SOHO environment
>
>
> >
> > From: "Greg" <runman at speedfactory.net>
> >
> > I have experienced this firsthand.  Since I have more programs
> than I would
> > care to admit, it takes a several weekends to get my main box
> even close to
> > what it was before I have had to reinstall.  If you are running
> a stock box
> > with documented changes then perhaps it "might" not be so bad.  But I
> > suspect that most folks (especially IT types) have their main
> PC's full of
> > little programs, links, scripts, etc etc that need to be backed
> up. A full
> > backup is a whole lot less painful than trying to recreate a
> box.  After you
> > have updated, upgraded, and patched a box it's even worse.
> >
> > Greg
>
> Thanks Greg, and also (back a post) thanks to the guy that
> suggested looking at the TAO of
> backups. For home use, my desktop is pretty much vanilla (I
> clobbered myself too many times
> building from CVS and doing other things I'm just not ready for)
> - so for me, bone stock SuSE
> 8.2, with the exception of Samba server tossed in.
>
> My wife's and son's laptop was stock WinXP, but now has too many
> things thrown in. If I could
> convince her to lose the MS stuff, I'd much prefer going with a
> good desktop Linux solution (with
> CD's for backup). Don't think that'll happen.
>
> My work laptop is dualboot RH9 and Win2K with WAY too many
> different apps, and way too
> much data all over the place. I do complete backups, but haven't
> had to restore yet. We'll see
> how that goes (the disk is going, I have a new disk - I'll bring
> it in to the office to see if they can
> duplicate and restore. If not, well - the backups might come in handy).
>
> The sticky part comes in when I think of doing backups at church.
> The PC's are used by multiple
> people, and have been used for several years. Some original CDs
> (and licenses) are around. A
> lot just can no longer be located. That would be a bear to sort
> through the desktops.
>
> But whatever I decide to do for the church, I will first do at
> home - decide on a backup solution.
> Do backups. Nuke a PC and rebuild it.
>
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