That's a definite thought... although I was thinking something more along the lines of a "lightweight server" that's barely more than a host for a tape drive...but your idea of using DFS-R and then backing up the remote server makes a lot of sense as well.... problem being that we'd have to buy yet another full powered server...which might not be a bad thing as it would allow us to have a DC at both the main site and at a remote site.... Hmm...
-----Original Message----- From: Ben Scott [mailto:mailvor...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 8:50 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: "Backup Server" On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 4:27 PM, John Aldrich <jaldr...@blueridgecarpet.com> wrote: > Here's the situation - we have about 150-200 Gigabytes of data on > our mirrored servers. We want to back that data up to something > other than the mirrored server. I was thinking of putting a "server" > up at one of our remote offices with either an integrated or external > tape drive and load some sort of backup software on it to write the > data to tape. Instead of that, I would: (1) Do a disk-to-disk sync from HQ to the remote server every night. (2) Do a disk-to-removable backup of the remote server every night. There are some very efficient ways to do disk-to-disk sync. DFS-R, rsync, Unison, etc. So you save time and bandwidth. Also, if you need a "day after" restore, all you need is the COPY command. And since the remote system is also being backed up (presumably with rotated media), you have all the benefits of that, too. You can use NTBACKUP without needing to pay for special backup software. Basically, a poor man 's disk-to-disk-to-removable solution. (Or buy a more sophisticated D2D2R solution, but you mentioned you're on a budget.) "Removable" can mean traditional tape or any kind of removable hard disk drive (eSATA, USB, FireWire, etc.). -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
