Click to See Complete Forum and Search --> : Which backup solution?


cjewell
05-23-2004, 06:49 PM
Hi,

I know this has been discussed in this forum before, but no real recommendations were made.

My situation is this: I have a small home network comprised of a Linux router/server with 4 workstations (4 running WinXP and 1 running Linux). The users of each of the machines has a filestore on the server which also hosts printing, ftp, mailhosting, and VPN. The Linux box also has an ADSL internet connection and runs a stateful firewall.

For my own needs, I need a backup solution that would cope with backing up the server root partition (for quick reinstall in the event of a crash)(1GB), the server home partition with everybody's documents on it (2GB), my own Linux box with a 20GB home partition (plus the WinXP installation that I have as a dual boot).

I was managing quite well just backing up my own documents onto CDRW until the size of my home directory became too big for 1 CD (even bzipped). So I'm considering buying a tape drive to expand on this, but had wondered about a DVDRW. The solution must be fairly reasonably priced (eg <£250).

Which option would be most sensible? My workstation is currently a 2.4GHz P4/256MB RAM/IDE controller only - this is the machine I would like to do the backups from as it is more convenient to get to than the router/server.

Any help gratefully received!

Chris J

pezplaya
05-23-2004, 06:56 PM
I would go for a dvd burner. Almost everyone now a days has a dvd-rom for their computer, so if your tape drive fails you will still be able to read your data on another dvd drive instead of buying a new tape drive. Not many people have tape drives, and I personally have always had bad luck with them.

A while back I bought a iomega jazz drive which was able to store 2gb per disk, and the drive crashed like 1 year after i bought it so i was unable to read/recover any of my data.

Go for a type of media that is more widely used.

gehidore
05-23-2004, 07:05 PM
get a removeable hdbay for the box that need backing up, buy a small but reliable hd like a WD then back it up. pull the drive and store it somewhere safe, like in the bay but turned off.