Backing Up Multiple Macs

[geohanson]

Hi All,

 

I am trying to put together a solution for backing up a number of iMacs on our network.

We have two rooms, one with 12 iMacs and the other with 16 iMacs. They are setup on their own network/VLAN, bound to OD and managed from a Mac Mini Server using Profile Manager.

Users all have network homes that live on the internal drive of the server.

The HD in each iMac is partitioned into two. A 'system' drive and a 'data' drive. The data drive is where the students do most of their work from - using Logic X/GarageBand and Sibelius. Trying to run these projects across the network doesn't work due to the massive amount bandwidth required, and they need to be run locally.

The problem is that non of the students work on the 'data' drive is backed up automatically. It is simply copied/pasted onto a NAS whenever I have time to walk round to each machine.

This obviously takes ages to do and we need a better/automated solution.

The NAS is also used as shared storage for all Mac users and contains lots of archive data.

 

Has anyone used TimeMachine for backing up that many machines?

I was considering a large NAS device (the current one is almost full) with multiple users/quotas so each Mac would have its own quota and TM wouldn't just fill the NAS. I know the Synology devices will let me do this (I have one at home) but I don't know if I'm going to run into issues with this many machines.

 

The two Mac suites are on opposite sides of the school and in different buildings, so I was thinking about 1 larger device (Room 1 Backups, Shares, Archive Data) and 1 smaller device (Room 2 Backups).

 

I'd be very much open to any suggestions!

 

Thanks

[FN-GM]

Its been about 6 years since I last looked at this, but I would look at using Deploy Studio. It will let you take a backup of the whole OS.

[Guest MD5T]

Deploy studio or time machine?

[Brimstone]

Using Deploy Studio is not a real back up solution, if you want something really powerful then Carbon Copy Cloner is your best bet..

 

https://bombich.com

[Norphy]

I set up a Mac server with Time Machine on to back up about 40 macs in my old job. I think it's still going strong

@Roberto, any comment?

[mrnoisy]

We bought one of these to hang off the back of the Mac mini ODM server, http://www.lacie.com/gb/en/professional/rackmount/8big-rack-thunderbolt-2/, we've been trailing it for staff MacBook backups using time machine, works well, the initial backup is a little slow, but you could tweak this just to do specific folders etc.

[Roberto]

I set up a Mac server with Time Machine on to back up about 40 macs in my old job. I think it's still going strong

@Roberto, any comment?

 

Yes, it's rock-solid. Hasn't given me an ounce of trouble.