deceptivex

Backing it up over the network is a nightmare. Depending on the size of the data your backing up, buy some standard USB disks from somewhere and just backup each server to its own, then maybe overnight when the place is closed, set a scheduled task to run a batch file, copying the contents of the USB disks to the 2TB NAS? that way it avoids strain on the network and servers, doing copying whilst in use. To put into perspective why you shouldn't back up over the network first, the biggest debt company in britain backs up onto SAN and it tales 37 hours to back up every day, so we had to cut the jobs into a dozen or so smaller ones to actually be able to have enough time in the day to complete it. A nightmare. Either way, it starts getting expensive when you factor in data redundancy methods. Could just say **** it, you delete your spreadsheet, your loss, you will learn next time not to just click willy nilly ... Also, how the hell can Microsoft justify 900 quid for Project Professional, you could get a bloody server for that much.

Don't worry about it, the method I proposed is a fairly PARANOID method but that's because of our clients and the fact we have a dozen servers just building software and whatnot, but it's effective and works really well. You could make do with an external disk for each really and a couple spare. Believe me, here we back up, the backups of the original backup, that's how bad it's got, I'm sifting through 200 tapes today because I missed a week way back when so the entire schedule is off haha. The joys.

See other thread mate.

Gatt, use backup exec system recovery first of all, it's the beefed up version of Norton ghost, and takes 10 minutes to restore a totally knackered server to back and working. We use that for all 36 of the servers here, along with backup exec to backup both FULL backups on weekends, and incremental every other day which are backed up like following; Previous 7 days are stored on external hard disk for quick restores, previous 40 weekend FULL backups are on tapes, and 4 sets of 7 tapes for weekly incremental backups, so we would restore from the full tape, then incremental to Wednesday using the weekly tapes. Not sure if that made sense. It is a per server basis, most simple way would be use backup exec for FS, SQL and Exchange and just Backup exec recovery for AD and DOM controller, what would be the point of backing up individual files on a AD Domain controller? it rarely changes in any major way, so exec recovery is a cheaper option and offers the ability to restore rickety tick in the event of system downtime. £1,226.97 for the 3 copies of backup exec and £300.99 for exec recovery for the AD server grand total £1,527.96. Hope this helps.