Economic Backup Solution for SB Server 2003

[Daffydd]

Hi all,

We have a very small office, about 12 workstations, connected together with a Dell Poweredge running Windows Small Business Server 2003. We have about 50 or GBs of data we need to back up [preferably] on a daily basis.

Our tape drive failed recently, we were using ArcServe, and we are now looking for a new solution. I like the idea of not replacing the tape drive, going, possibly, with alternating USB external drives instead.

I would really appreciate hearing some of your ideas and advice on which direction, which software, etc. for our back up needs. I'm interested in hearing what some of you are using for a back up plan.

We are in a bit of a budget crunch (who isn't these days!) so the cheaper the solution the better. ;)

Thanks so much for listening!
Daf

[Dave44]

First it depends on what is being backed up. Is it just regular files or is it database files?

If its for regular files then get yourself a couple external hard drives, eSATA if you can otherwise USB or firewire, that are nice and portable for taking off site. Just alternate them each night so one is on site getting the days changes and the other is taken away.

At home i do a similar thing for my work, using robocopy to backup all my important stuff as a scheduled task at night. It works well and there are many options to choose from, rewriting only that which changes from the last time or mirroring etc.

The first writes will be big (because its all new) but after that you can set it to just write changed files.

Do all the workstations do their work on the network rather than local? it makes backing up a lot easier.

Database backups are a little more tricky but you can still use the same idea, For example with Oracle I use RMAN (an oracle backup/recovery tool) to run the backups but I can still put it on an external hardrive.

[Daffydd]

Thank you for the heads up on Robocopy, I see it's included with SBS2003 so that's a good start. I'll look it over and see what I can do with it.

The majority of the backup will be files, there will be a sybase db and then there is the exchange db as well. I have no idea how or where those even are at this time but will figure it out. Maybe Robocopy can handle them, although I believe that the sybase db, part of a radiio trafficking software, will require that a service be stopped before it will allow for a copy. Then I need to start the service again for the work day.

I'll post back with any additional questions and a progress report. :)

Thanks again!
Daf