snowden617
asked on
Seek advice re external drive backup w/ firewire & software
After a scary crash (replaced processor, motherbnoard and aasorted other parts, see the need to have better back-up in place. In short, have got religion big-time.
Configuration is small network with double provessor high memory workstation with 120 gigs on several gard dirives, recent laptop with 40 gig drive, and two other older machines with less essential data netweoked as well. MainDell 530 workstation has firewire connect, as does laptop.
Questions: is a large (300 gig) external hard drive with fire-wire conect to main machine a feasible way to do back up? AM considering using Ghost software to make image of whole drive (s). Whihc softwares would be best to automate this process? Can supplement with existing tape drives for non-critical data on older machines, and also for dailay data-only backups. But I want to avoid the stress of trying to reconstruct a full drive intmhe evenyt of failure. Would it also be desirable to have multipele smaller external drives with similar configs and swap them out on a rotation basis? Which back up software is good for this? Is Ghost adaquate? Other better alternatives? can one extract individual files from a ghost image or just the whoe drive?
Perhaps not the most difficult questions inthe world for those who have experiecne with all this, but for me, essential, can only have the funds to do it once. Essential that the solution I chose will be user friendlly in application, else the back-ups get pushed aside when life gets busy, and that, as we all know, is very dangerous.
Thanks in advance.
Configuration is small network with double provessor high memory workstation with 120 gigs on several gard dirives, recent laptop with 40 gig drive, and two other older machines with less essential data netweoked as well. MainDell 530 workstation has firewire connect, as does laptop.
Questions: is a large (300 gig) external hard drive with fire-wire conect to main machine a feasible way to do back up? AM considering using Ghost software to make image of whole drive (s). Whihc softwares would be best to automate this process? Can supplement with existing tape drives for non-critical data on older machines, and also for dailay data-only backups. But I want to avoid the stress of trying to reconstruct a full drive intmhe evenyt of failure. Would it also be desirable to have multipele smaller external drives with similar configs and swap them out on a rotation basis? Which back up software is good for this? Is Ghost adaquate? Other better alternatives? can one extract individual files from a ghost image or just the whoe drive?
Perhaps not the most difficult questions inthe world for those who have experiecne with all this, but for me, essential, can only have the funds to do it once. Essential that the solution I chose will be user friendlly in application, else the back-ups get pushed aside when life gets busy, and that, as we all know, is very dangerous.
Thanks in advance.
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hmmm,,, maybe two 300 gig drices and alternate them.
Aboutthe RAID.... like the idea of the raid 5 set up but it does sound costly. It could back up a series of machines with a series of drives and not just the main rive? What sort of capacity does one see in such a set up? It has it's own free-standing houseing? ANd it backs up exiting drive all at once at intervals or in a steady stream? What general price category for such an animal? Where do I look to educate myself aboutthis (aside from your grascious replaies...?
RAID 1 can have ultpe IDE drives on it , each of very large capacity?
Thanks in advance