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Backing Up Issues!!!!

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hello
i am the comp. tech at a city deparment, i have the job of keeping track of software and hardware on pcs. my newest request is that i need to have a back of all the pc in the building *about 40* and bascially have a backup ready asap. what i am saying is that i don’t know what software or method to use. “Should i use partition magic, image drive or ghost, i just need a successful way of backing up the systems.

*option 1-
connecting a 60gig harddrive to the pc’s as i do back ups to the huge 60 gigi drive

*option 2-
use ghost, partition magic or something like that to copy the drive to the 60 gig drive

*option 3-
run a system back through microsoft back up and save the back up to a CD?

any input would be greatly appriciated
thanks

Topic

If it were me I would

In reply to Backing Up Issues!!!!

use ghost. I assume that these 40 pcs are on a network even though you didnt mention. If they are you can Run ghost from one machine as multicast server and then boot each pc with a ghost disk which will allow you to connect to the ghost server and capture the image of the pc. I then would burn the image on cd and lable it with the users/computer name. If anything goes wrong in the future you can at least get them back to the point of when you made the ghost.

Rad

Another Backup Option To Consider Note

In reply to If it were me I would

Dear bottomsup ….

I am just a beginner
I hope my answer will be somewhat helpful.
Rads answer about ‘Ghost” sounds like a good idea.
BJewel

Another Backup Option To Consider:

In reply to Backing Up Issues!!!!

I have ‘Tons’ of info on m y Pc right now because I am doing personal research projects;
So
I have been seriously looking into how I can store save protect all my infoermation & work….
The safest way seems to me to be
Install a rewrite drive in each computer
Store each segment or type of info on a disc,
so
the info work etc remains on the Pc but youy also have a very safe copy.

In your case I would
1.) Call a meeting with all computer people
2.) Ask for their help collaboration Help
3.) Install a rewrite drive into each persons PC in your company
4.) Ask each person to be resposible for their own information.
5.) Ask them to back up to removable disc each day.
6.) Ask for copies end of each week so you can review info / work / project… or ??

This way you can
Ease your own work Load
& make everyone a partner making everyone co-operate with each other more & ensuring less chance of Loss.
It may be that some people will need help to do this.
Make a Mini Poster & attach it to each persons PC or Wall
or
Programme into each persons PC
a reminder to do this before closing down
or
install programming into each persons PC
for all work to be automatically saved to rewrite disc
& also to a main frame PC
or
Mainframe PC discs that can be removed end of each day…
Good Luck
I hope this Helps
BJewel

My experience with backups

In reply to Another Backup Option To Consider:

has been the user can not be trusted to do it on a consistant basis. Sad but true.

What we do here is have the applications default to a network drive for writing data. Then we have a standard ghost image for the OS and Office Suite/Anti-virus/Utilities for each model of machine we support.

If something happens we can get the user up and running fast – we ensure their data on the network drive is always backed up, and we can give them a loaner or re-image their machine quickly if need be.

The problems with keeping things on CDRW is that user CDs get lost, or when they change jobs, dissapear.

Hope that helps

James

Options/Clarifications

In reply to Backing Up Issues!!!!

Reading your question I had to ask myself these questions;

What is the goal that you are ulimately trying to achieve?

And what is the present setup, ie where is the data stored?

From what I can gather, you are trying to backup data from individual machines on a regular basis.

Next I have to ask myself, Why is all data not stored in a central location?

The next questions is, have you been tasked with having an restore image of each machine in the case of hardware failure. And if so, is each machine exactly the same? These are important considerations for using image based backups.

Image based backups serve a different purpose then data based backups.

For data based backups: The ultimate solutions would be to attach that 60gig drive (hopefully it is an array and not just a single drive),
Get all data off of all individual machines and have it stored *permamently* on the file server (60 giger). Then you back up the 60 gig drive to tape on a regular basis.
(For user files I use the weekly full daily incremntal method; For production mission critical, Daily Full)

A note on File servers; They should generally be in some sort of a scsi based hardware array in a RAID5 config. This can be done using one generic box with NTserver on it (4 or 2k), buying a hardware raid scsi controller, and a minimum of 3 scsi drives.

To set up raid5 on the drives, you would use the raid scsi card instead of the OS. Hardware raid is always better then software raid.
A note on images, backing up 40 2 gig full of data drives as images will = 80 gigs. Images are not compressed as one might beleive. They just are packaged in a way that you can restore the drive back to the state it was in when you imaged it.

go

In reply to Backing Up Issues!!!!

go for magic partiton i supose man
sumit

mmm

In reply to go

Go for norton ghost..or use the microsoft back up if u want them taped on Cds

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