Backup network computers

[Bglad]

Wasn't sure which forum to post this.

I need some suggestions for backing up my office computers. I have 3 computers and 1 server on a network.

I don't want to ever completely lose all data from these machines. I don't want to spend thousands and I don't need RAID redundancy or anything like that. I am however willing to spend more than is required for the +/-$150 options if necessary for safety and convenience.

I want to create complete hard drive image backups so if something happened to one of the machines, I can repair and just restore the hard drive image. Can this be done over a network? In case of a failure that requires reinstalling Windows, I would need to be able to extract files from the hard drive image without restoring the entire drive.

I've been using DriveImage successfully for some time but now we have some new software on the server and it is imperative that it gets backed up all the time. DriveImage will not backup and restore to/from a network drive so I can't schedule automatic backups. I think I would like to add a hard drive to the network and use some software to schedule each computer to back itself up to the network drive in the middle of the night.

Anyone have experience with this?

 

[Bglad]

No one have any experience with this?

 

[ITJunkie]

Well, you could always buy a large USB/Firewire external drive and backup to that. I recently got a 400GB drive for around $250.

I know you don't want to spend a lot of money but the question you have to ask yourself is what is the cost to you, your business, etc. if you were to lose those files?
If the files are really that critical then I would strongly suggest you invest the money in a tape backup system (like DLT or DDS) and software (backup exec or whatever). This way you can schedule the backups to run over night and take the tapes offsite.

I've seen waaay too many small business owners try to save a few bucks by short-cutting the backup process and then sh1t bricks when their "raid backup" (even though I tell them RAID is not a backup solution) fails. If you think this type of backup solution is expensive, wait until you have to pay a company to pull data off a failed harddrive.