small office backup hardware advice

[Sdavtaker]

The rotative HDs sounds like a nice approach, i will check some prices 
and see what i can get here.
Thanks for the info, I will try the dump way, it should be enough :-)
Damian

Jerry McAllister wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 01, 2008 at 09:38:48AM -0400, Robert Huff wrote:
>
>   
>> Sdavtaker writes:
>>     
>  
>  >  Im working in a small office (4 PC with 80GB HD each and a
>  >  "server" with a 200GB HD).
>  >  We were working with no backups at all until now, we was just
>  >  replicating some critical data in more than 1 PC all the time,
>  >  back then there was no money for any hard copy of the data
>  >  outside of the network (maybe a couple DVDR time to time).
>  >  Now, they gave me some money for backup stuff.
>
> Depends on just what you need.   If you just want to cover a system
> failure, then maybe you should get some USB connected hard drives.
> They are pretty cheap now.   
>
> If you have 4 80 GB drives to back up, then get at least 3 drives
> with 350 GB space or more.    
>
> Use fdisk/disklabel/newfs to create 4 (or more) 90 GB filesystems
> on each drive.    
> Then set up a rotation of those drives so you use dump(8) to back up
> each current file system that has important data to those USB drives.
> So, PC A gets dumped to filesystem da0s1a, PC B to da0s1b, etc.
>
> Say there is a root, /usr and /data file systems that you want to
> back up, just for example, then you would plug in the USB disk
> and mount them something like this.
>
> On PC A,  
>   mount /da0s1a /pcabak
>   dump 0aLf /pcabak/root.bak /
>   dump 0aLf /pcabak/usr.bak /usr
>   dump OaLf /pcbak/data.bak /data
>
> Then on PC B,  
>   mount /da0s1b /pcbbak
>   dump 0aLf /pcbbak/root.bak /
>   dump 0aLf /pcbbak/usr.bak /usr
>   dump OaLf /pcbak/data.bak /data
>
> This will crate three appropriately named backup files for each
> PC on the USB disk.   This is presuming the USB connects as /dev/da0
> It could be something else if you have other SCSI devices.  So, it
> might ende up as /dev/da1 or something like that.
>
> Really, you don't need all the extra partitions and filesystems.
> Just make one and create appropriately named directories.  But
> the separate filesystems will enforce separation of that us 
> useful to you.
>
>
> Or, since there are just exactly 4 systems and it is possible to
> make up to 4 slices on a drive, then make 4 slices and then 
> partitions within each slice to match those on the current machines.
> Say you want, for some reason, to back up partitions a, d, e of
> PC A and partitions d, f, g of PC B, etc (just grabbing partitions
> out of the hat here to use as example here), then
>
> Make slice 1 for PC A, slice 2 for PC b, slice 3 for PC C and slice 4 for PC D
> on each USB disk.
>
> Then make partitions a, d, e on slice 1, d, f, g on slice 2, etc.
> Use newfs(8) to build file systems of each of those partitions and
> then use dump to create the dump files in each.    That makes sense
> but may be more bother then really needed, since you can distinguish
> the dumps just by the names you give them.
>
> If you must create archive backups, then you will probably want to go
> to a good tape system, such as DLT or LTO tapes.   But, they are so
> expensive relative to buying a handful of 350 - 500 GB USB hard drives
> that you should think carefully about your needs before deciding.
>
> Have fun,
>
> ////jerry
>
>
>   
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