Backup Solution

[Sergeus]

Greetings again!

I noticed on the homepage of Ian's guide, one of the things the media server should do is:

"It must be powerful enough to support multiple, simultaneous, High-Definition video streams. Not only that, but it must be able to do this whilst doing other things too, such as backing up my desktop computers or re-encoding video files."

I'm working on the streaming part, fighting PS3MediaServer all the way with my evil mkv files, some of which refuse to play, but I'm wondering if Ian or anyone else has found a good backup solution for backing up other computers over the network? I've never had proper backups of my computers, and often quite worried by that. I've had to save my files in somewhat roundabout ways before, like booting from a recovery cd, starting a command prompt, and then moving the files using regedit's import file browser, which is definitely something to be avoided!

I didn't see any software mentioned in the guide, but I'm sure there are some good ones out there for Ubuntu. Basically, I'd like to be able to create backup images of the HDDs of my other computers periodically so if anything goes wrong, I'll at least have all my files on the server.

Any pointers would be much appreciated!

[Andy Horn]

Hi there.

Back in my XP days I used Syncback http://www.2brightsparks.com/freeware/index.html it just worked, but with Vista and W7 I seem to have issues with schedules.

After a quick Google search I found that a lot of Linux types use rsync and Delta copy, but it is beyond my limited Linux foo.

For disk imaging I usually use Macrium Reflect http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx the free version.

Andy

[Sergeus]

I'm liking the look of rsync and Delta copy, I'll take a look at them this weekend if I'm able to piece together enough time.

Can you do remote imaging with Macrium? I see that the free version doesn't support incremental backups, so the filesize must be massive unless you're wiping old images once you create new ones?

[Andy Horn]

I found this http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-drive-imaging-program.htm all Windows based tools.

I have downloaded and installed Paragon Backup & Recovery 2011 (Advanced) Free Edition, which allows you to create a boot disk that includes network support.

Paragon also supports differential back up's, so it would seem Paragon has more features than Macrium Reflect.

And it gets better as Paragon has full support for ext2, ext3, ext4 Linux partitions.

Andy