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Backing Up Company Files

  
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UserFriendly Reply with quote
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 Joined: 05 May 2005
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 1:05 pm    Post subject: Backing Up Company Files
 
I'm looking for some opinions on the best way to backup company files. Not websites - I'm talking about Office files, emails & pictures et cetera.

I work in a small office with 5-8 computers (some are laptops and therefore aren't here all the time). Each computer probably has 3-6GB that needs to be backed up.

What would you suggest with regards to:

    Backup Software
    Media - External Hard Drive? Tape Backup? DVDs?

Is there anything else I should be thinking about?

Thanks.

Richard
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 1:38 pm    Post subject:
 
What software do these company computers use? Are you looking for a Linux or Windows backup solution?

Andrew
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 2:27 pm    Post subject:
 
They're all Windows XP Pro.

Richard
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rhinoian Reply with quote
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 2:45 pm    Post subject:
 
I use Dantz Retrospect Professional . I have a main server with a spare hard drive (you could use a NAS drive set-up instead) that backs up 3 PC's although extra licenses are available for more computers. It is set to backup each automatically every day and will overwrite old data when the drive is full. It also works with tape drives, CD & DVD writers. Very efficient, most daily incremental backups take 5 - 10 mins a bit longer with a laptop. You can also take as many different backups onto different media that you want so once weekly I back up onto DVD.

For your needs, I would suggest a daily hard drive backup and poss a once weekly DVD per PC or tape drive for the job lot to store offsite.

Ian
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 8:58 pm    Post subject:
 
I use a NAS storage device for backups of the PCs here at home. And use Silverkeeper for the mac, I believe they do PC versions as well.
If you want to be really safe, I would suggest Tape backup with off site storage (in the event of fire, flood or theft).
Having seen companies go under and IT Managers sacked for no backups or failed backups, I would strongly advise you test your backups as well.

Mark
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 9:45 am    Post subject:
 
ukcobra wrote:

Having seen companies go under and IT Managers sacked for no backups or failed backups, I would strongly advise you test your backups as well.
Mark


Right on the money. It's not so much the "backup strategy" that matters as the "recovery strategy".

I often say to people, "OK, that's how you do your backups. Now imagine you've had a total failure and explain to me how you are going to recover." Depressingly often the answer is either a blank incomprehensive stare, nervous bluster or a wry sideways smile.

Without wanting to hijack Richard's original question I would also be interested in how people here check the integrity of their backup mechanisms and/or test their ability to recover from various failure scenarios.

Regards,

Pete
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 1:37 pm    Post subject:
 
Time to restoration can be cruicial too.
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 11:54 am    Post subject:
 
Thanks for all the advice everyone. Much appreciated. I'm going to look into getting some kind of NAS device and perhaps tape for off site backups.

Richard
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