backup mac local home folders how do you do it

[round2it]

just finishing off the new mac installs now and i have things working like i want im just a bit at a loss on how to backup users data on the macs

 

the set up is

 

Logon using students login

 

they get a local machine home folder

and they get a link to the users windows network share available from the dock

 

should i get the users to copy what they need onto the windows network share

or can i automate the process of backing up the data to say the mac server or portable drive

 

 

the potential of data loss is quite high due to our little darlings being yobs

 

any ideas welcome

[morganw]

I would recommend using backuppc to take backups using rsync at the end of every day. I guess it would depend on how much data is generated per day though.

[round2it]

Looks like its going to take a while to get this up and running anyone else got any software they use

[Ashm]

Are you using Open Directory on the Mac Server? You could set it up so the Mac clients use mobile accounts which synchronise with the Server on logon & logoff and possibly in the background as well.

 

Otherwise I would recommend setting setting up rsnapshot backup on a linux server to backup the clients.

[round2it]

yes we are using open directory

 

on logon and logoff would that slow things down to a crawl?

[Chris_Cook]

Possibly, depending on the amount of data. What are the macs being used for? if you're using 10.5 or later, you could use time machine to backup to an external disk or nas box.

[round2it]

more than likely just video editing and graphics

[dayzd]

on logon and logoff would that slow things down to a crawl?

No, not if pupils are taught to use the same machine each lesson.

 

We use mobile accounts as suggested above, as we used to have a synchronisation script that copied users' data at login/out, but that did slow logins/outs to a crawl. If a user stays on the same machine, mobile accounts only needs to sync what's changed - like Offline Files on Windows machines - with the benefit they can background sync too (at an interval you can control).

 

Now, the only time our kids have to wait while their 10-20GB of data is copied is if they use a different machine mid-term, while their friends who use the same machine each lesson are logged in and working within 30 seconds.

[morganw]

more than likely just video editing and graphics

 

On one occation I had 250GB of data generated in one day from editing video, over half of this was just one student pressing all of the wrong export options in iMovie. It's a real hassle to back this stuff up.

[round2it]

i think i will tell them to copy important data over to the windows share this gets backed up each night