🚀 go-pugleaf

"Paul J. Campbell" <paulc8+nospam@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message 
news:43899da0$0$25857$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...
>I have a home network consisting of two computers connected to a
> small router via 10/100 Mbps ethernet. I have 4 IDE hard disks, each
> 200GB or less. The operating systems are Windows XP SP1 and SP2,
> Windows 98, Linux Red Hat 9, and Linux Fedora Core 3.

Well Done.  Good So Far
>
> Now for the hard bit - what's the easiest way to keep all of these
> IDE hard drives backed up, e.g. if one of my hard drives gets errors and
> fails, I'd preferably like to just replace it with a backed-up
> hard drive and have it work.

Keep all your data on one computer.  (perferably the fastest and perhaps buy 
a bigger hard drive for it too).  That way you only need to worry about 1 
lot of backups.
If your M/Board supports it, setup a hardware raid.  Software Raids are no 
good if the OS shits itself.  Then just add your choice of backup devices
Tape, USB HDD, DVD.  You need this too, because a RAID won't protect your 
data from viruses, fire, theft, etc.

>
> I believe I would want one or more backup 'devices' to be connected
> to my router, i.e. I don't think I want to keep opening up my
> computers and keep putting in individual backup hard drives every
> time I want to do a backup. The question is, what should those
> 'devices' be?

Depends on how much to want to back up.  Look for media that can be stored 
off-site or in a safe place.  (Tape, CD, DVD, ZIP)
>
> I'm a complete novice in backing up, so don't assume that I know
> anything. By all means include any brand names in your answer.

>
> Corporations don't have a lot of time to waste, so how do they do it?
> I don't necessarily mind spending some money if it will give me
> reliability and convenience.

You'd be supprised how many organisations don't give backups a second 
thought until its too late.  A good backup system should be:
7 - 14 day cycle + montly archive + yearly archive.  (or 5 - 10 day cycle if 
weekdays only)
>
> Would hardware RAID 1 or RAID 5 work?

For backups, NO! Reliability, YES!

> - Backing up: can the backed-up drive(s) sit on the network
>     outside my computer? The original hard drive is obviously
>     inside my computer.
> - Restoring: if one of the hard drives
>     in my computers fails, can I replace it with a backed-up hard drive
>     and have it work? Will both Linux and Windows still work?
>
> I understand that RAID is rather expensive but it may be worth it
> depending on the price.

SATA RAID 5.  You need at least 3 disks for RAID 5.
>
> --
> If that's possible, then I think this still leaves to have to deal with
> one more backup methodology - if some files get deleted accidently, then
> in the back-ups they will be deleted as well.
>
> So I probably need something which also allows me to do a few
> historical backups. I suppose I need something which can image my hard
> drives, and (to save on cost) with the option to allow incremental
> backups on subsequent backups?
>
> I tried using Norton Ghost 9 in XP SP1 (whilst XP was running - apparently
> it's supposed to support this). I did it the hard way by opening
> up my computer and connecting the backup drive to it. (As I wrote above,
>   I'd prefer if I could have the backup drive on the network all the time,
>   if possible).
>
> But it didn't work for me. Some logical drive letters seemed to back up
> fine, others didn't. So I have a portion of the files backed up,
> but the hard drive won't boot - Linux Red Hat 9 complains that
> /boot has a 1-byte size difference compared to what is in the
> Master Boot Record. Whereas Windows XP boots up to the XP logo,
> but that's all it shows - it doesn't give me the normal password prompt.
> On the web this Windows XP problem is mentioned by many people, but
> I could never find a solution.
>
> --
> On the web I've researched a few backup devices. Something like
> Netgear Storage Central (SC101) sounds good in that it allows you
> to put in your own hard drives of your choice.
>
> Buffalo TeraStation comes with an attractive 1TB of storage via
> 4x250GB hard drives, but I don't believe the hard drives can be taken out?
>
> In any case if my understanding is correct, both of these devices
> basically allow you to backup files. By themselves, I think they don't
> come with anything to allow me to take full images of my hard disks - is
> that correct?
>