Backup advice

[Jason Lixfeld]

On 23-May-07, at 9:23 PM, Doug Hardie wrote:

> The criteria for selecting a backup approach is not the backup  
> methodology but the restore methodology.

Excellent point.

Perhaps I'm asking the wrong question, so let me try it this way  
instead:

I'm looking for a backup solution that I can rely on in the event I  
have a catastrophic server failure.  Ideally this backup would look  
and act much like a clone of the production system.  In the worse  
case, I'd re-format the server array and copy the clone back to the  
server, setup the boot blocks, and that would be it.

Ideally this clone should be verifiable, meaning I should be able to  
verify it's integrity so that it's not going to let me down if I need  
it.

I'm thinking external USB hard drive of at least equal size to the  
server array size as far as hardware goes, but I'm lost as far as  
software goes.

Any advice appreciated.