Need help picking backup software
 

Hey guys, I need to set up some backup systems at work (we're a small company) and I'm a bit stuck when it comes to finding backup software.

We're wanting to use the following:
- Tandberg Quikstation RDX configured for emulated RDX autoloader
- Back up the files from a single server
- Use a Towers of Hanoi schedule

The supported programs listed by the hardware manufacturer are:

BakCone Netvault
ArcServe
SEP Sesam
Symantec Backup Exec

But thus far they all seem fairly overkill, with server programs and clients and the like, we just need to be able to control an autoloader & copy the files on a schedule, on a single machine.

Help?

can you not setup a scheduled upload to drop-box? seems nice and cheap.

We want to keep everything local, for security purposes. And we have about 300GB of data that will only keep growing.

If you're willing to invest so much $$ in the backup hardware you probably want to have compatible software.

Right, but paying >25% of the cost of the hardware just for software, when the software has a large number of features that would be unused seems wasteful. I don't believe I need dedicated server & client programs designed to back up multiple servers & PC's when all I want to do is copy the files off one machine & run the autoloader.

I know I can schedule the straightforward backing up of files using Windows Task Scheduler & SyncToy, so if I could find a tool that can control the autoloader on a schedule that's about all I would need I think?

could check out amanda community edition, can't beat free. I've heard a few good things about it but never tried it myself. They do have a paid version of it with support as well.

Amanda Open Source Backup

I couldn't find any mention of whether or not it would support your tandberg tape drive, but there is a 'customer comment' type thing on the right that says "Cycorp has been using Amanda for over 7 years now. In that time, we have scaled from backing up a few Gigs to a DLT 2000XT drive to over 2 Terabytes with an SDLT600-based autoloader. "

so you might be in luck

get an external 3gb hdd and do a ghost to it every day/other day. you can very easily use winbloze backup tools to do it, but if you're pretty sketched by that, get a copy of either Nortons Ghost, or Acronis True Image (I prefer Acronis personally) and you're pretty golden. The other option being get a tower, and hotlink your main comp to it, and unplug it every morning, back up every evening.

This is an office environment with multiple PC's. An external usb storage is not a good solution.

here is what i usually do

move all files that needs to be backed up from the pcs to the server. then using backup exec backup all files to a external hd connected using esata. and then rotate the drives on a daily bases so you will have copies for x amount of days, depending on how many external hds you use.

This works pretty for a lot of small business that need backup solutions.

Also you can use the built in windows server backup tool that is in windows 2008 assuming you are running windows server 2008. cost is zero and works pretty well.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, keep them coming.

Currently I only need to back up the files on the server, I know if need be I can use Windows Task Scheduler & SyncToy to backup the important bits on our PC's to our server (I already use this for my thumbdrive) as all our PC's run Win7 Pro, should we decide to back them up. But having everything controlled from one place if we go that route would be nice.

Jeremy617: I've been looking at Amanda, I'll contact them once our hardware arrives and see what they can do. Free would be great but we're willing to pay to play if need be.

lilaznviper: You're correct, we're running Server 2008 R2. My initial idea was almost exactly what you mentioned, but we're trying to minimize the potential for human error here (using the wrong drive, backups getting skipped when I'm on vacation or out in the field, etc) hence the 8 drive autoloader.

We're aiming for 8 drives in a Towers of Hanoi schedule, which will basically cover us for a year. Then when someone is going to the bank, they can pop out the drive that was written yesterday, put it in a safe deposit box, bring back the oldest one in there and load it into the empty bay.