I have had some experience with this especially on Peer-to-Peer (Non Server) networked Mission Critical machines.
These machines were used 6am to Midnight, always required to be available.
-First, we made sure that the machines were stable, and replaced ‘struggling’ (unsuitable for the job) machines.
-Used RAID 1 PCI cards in Win2kPro workstations
-We found out to our cost that Win2kPro has NO RAID facility – only Win2kServer!
What we did:
-FIRST partition with extreme care and thought: System; Mission Critical; Data; Drivers; Other.
-Use a large drive up to two with two mirrored.
-RAID1 utilise either PCI or SCSI ( a good recomendation apart from Band named cards are the most popular cards available through your wholesaler.
-RAID the machines as required.
Backup
I used GRBackPro, which was a reasonably inexpensive award winning backup >$60 to $90 with a fully working 30 day trial. (Also fully removable if it does not suit). My contact was Roberto Grassi on grsoftware@grsoftware.net or website www.grsoftware.net who will work with you.
Backup local machine and other networked machines onto CD-RW. Map drives as required.
-Seven CD-RW, one for each day of the week.
Any other comments on another idea please let us know. – PICTIS