Tell Me All About BACK-UP'S Please.

[tickmike]

Hello All.

edid...Win 2 K Server...edit end

On this new domain I only have about 30 workstations and this about term 30 users ( small village school ).

How / what / when do you 'Back Up. (comment about server and workstations )

On my server I have a 80Gb drive I can back up to.

I do not have any tape drives .

There is a CD burner on the server.

I also have a radio link to my home, so could also send a file on to my workstation at home for safe keeping.

Regards Michael.

[Geoff]

I use windows backup to backup to a USB hard drive once a week.
I also have shadow copies enabled which is handy for those per file/directory restores when someone deletes something they shouldn't.

[StewartKnight]

I for one can speak of the joys of Shadow Volume Copies... enable it now!!!

[ajbritton]

You have to ask yourself two questions?

1 - 'how valuable is the user data?'
If the user data has no value, then you need not back it up. If it is essential then it should be backed up as often as possible. Somewhere inbetween is usually the trafe-off.

2- 'how long can I afford to be offline?'
If you enjoy setting up systems from scratch and can do it at the drop of a hat, then no 'system' backup is necessary. If, more likely, your system constantly evolves, and rebuilding from bare metal would take days they you need to backup the 'system'. The 'system' is really everything that is not 'user' data.

Assuming your workstations are 'ghosted' and there is no user data on them (all data should be kept on the server, that's what it's for after all), then you don't need to back them up.

The only data you don't need to backup are those that can be automatically rebuilt (eg WSUS content, AntiVirus updates).

If your server has room, you could add a couple of internal SATA/IDE drives (cheap 250gb jobs would do), then mirror them (using 2003 volume mirror function). Data could then be backed up to these drives using NTBACKUP/ROBOCOPY. Downside to this is that if the server dies (mobo/PSU) you have no easy access to the data. Better to have the backup drives in some kind of external box either USB connected or NAS (terrastation).

[beeswax]

I also have a radio link to my home, so could also send a file on to my workstation at home for safe keeping.

I know it sounds like a good idea, but you could end up quite innocently storing other peoples' personal details on your machine at home, which wouldn't endear you to the data protection people.

[ChrisH]

He has server 2000 remember everyone.......

[tickmike]

Hi.
W2K sever

Beeswax said ....."I know it sounds like a good idea, but you could end up quite innocently storing other peoples' personal details on your machine at home, which wouldn't endear you to the data protection people."

1..How do you chaps get away with taking back up tapes home ?. And what if I give the Head a copy to take home on a CD rom say each week ?.

2..Has W2K sever got this 'shadow copy' on it ?.

3..On the server C drive is a SCSI HD ...I have a second HD also a SCSI drive, so if I set them to Mirror ( I believe there is a wizard for that ?) will that help me out ?.

4.. Do you always do a full back up ?.


My workstations are ghosted and I have a copy of that as well..

Regards Michael

[Ric_]

@tickmike:
1. Ideally, you would store the tapes in an off-site storage facility and failing that in a remote part of the building in a fire-proof safe. Taking the tapes home is a compromise and not many people have LTO2 tape drives at home

2. Fraid not. A crude batch job using robocopy could copy the user shares to another folder to give a similar effect.

3. Mirroring the disks will mean you won't lose all the data if one of the disks fail. If the server blows up or the place burns down you are screwed though. It also doesn't help with retreiving accidentally deleted files.

4. As was mentioned above, you assess what kind of backup is required after you decide how much data you can afford to lose.

You won't generally store work on the workstations so the ghost images are more for convenience than backups.

[witch]

Re: do you back up everything every time?
My back up tape drive, on a very old server, is too small to back up everything everyday, so basically I back up the system and some user data one day, and the system and other user data the next.
This way, I can fit it on the tapes and my copies are never that far out of date.
Not ideal, but I havent any other choice at present.

[Ric_]

@WITCH: Sounds sensible. With all backup solutions you must consider whether it is good value for money to implement a complicated or expensive backup procedure. If you are in a primary school where the little darlings maybe use the computers twice a week then back their work up twice a week. Staff work could still be backed up every day though since they may do work every day.

[tickmike]

Thanks all

[john]

Taking the tapes home is a compromise and not many people have LTO2 tape drives at home

You clearly don't know me yet, strokes nice shiny LTO drive (ok, you say LTO2, I say LTO1)

[tarquel]

Ric - I think he meant taking the tapes home in case of fire.... not to actually use them at home lol :P



Nath

[tickmike]

Get a lot of MP3's on them !

[Ric_]

@tarquel: I thought that tickmike was worried about data protection issues... I humbly apologise if I was mistaken