System Backup Software

[m1911owner]

I've done Google searches for information on backup software, but the results are so filled with marketing disinformation that I'm asking this here, because I trust the people here.

I need good backup software for backing up my hard drive to an external USB hard drive.

The external drive is much larger than the built-in drive, so there is lots of space on it for multiple copies of some things.  The operating system is Window 2000.  The external drive will be periodically attached to the system, and the software manually started to perform the backup operations.  Here is what I want the software to do:

1) (Required) Maintain an image of the internal drive that can be restored in the event of loss of the drive or corruption of the system.  This is to include all software on the system.

2) (Required) In specified directory trees, if a file has been changed, archive a separate archive copy of the old version of the file in an area on the backup drive that is distinct from the image of the internal hard drive.  (This will eventually end up with many, many copies of some files, with the corresponding dates.)

3) (Desired) Maintain some kind of Windows recovery information so that Windows on the main drive can be reverted to an earlier configuration in the event that malware has corrupted the system.  (I realized that 100% coverage for this is impossible, but I'd like to at least be able to make a reasonable attempt.)

4) (Desired) Some kind of protection so that the archive drive is protected against malware that may reside on the main drive.  (Again, 100% is impossible, but I'd like something that does its best to try.)

5) (Desired) I actually plan to have two or more backup drives used in a rotating manner.  It would be nice if the software can be aware of that, and intelligently manage the multiple archives.

[charby]

Symantec Ghost

http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/overview.jsp?pcid=br&pvid=ghost10

[Telperion]

I've used EMC/Dantz Retrospect for years.  I've recovered after reformatting and catastrophic disk failure on more than one occasion.  It will do everything on your list, except for #4.  It is a bit more featureful than Ghost, and consequently costs more.

[client32]

You might look into the backup utility that comes with windows.  start -> accessories -> system tools
I don't know that you can do everything you are wanting to with it, but if it will work, you won't have to spend any more money.

Past that, most my experience is with seagate and legato.  I have never used either of them like what you are attempting.

[m1911owner]

Thanks, everyone.  Retrospect looks like what I need; I've ordered a copy from Amazon for $90.

[lee n. field]

You might look into the backup utility that comes with windows.  start -> accessories -> system tools
I don't know that you can do everything you are wanting to with it, but if it will work, you won't have to spend any more money.

NTBackup is your basic filewise backup program.  You will not be able to do a bare metal recovery from it.  It works pretty well (except in W2K3 Small Business Server, with tape, where it seems to have trouble finding the backup hardware a good percentage of the time), and it's usually my choice for backing up Windows.  Though, my actual choice is not to run RedmondOS at all.

Retrospect

I've worked with Retrospect in the past, full server versions for both Mac and PC.  Retrospect (admitedly not the latest versions) strikes me as the most obtusely funky backup software I've ever worked with.   Very basic tasks are done in very odd ways, and some things I could never make work properly.  I just hope I never have to recover anything using it.

Give me tar invoked from a script, scheduled as a cron job, any day.

[richyoung]

You might look into the backup utility that comes with windows.  start -> accessories -> system tools
I don't know that you can do everything you are wanting to with it, but if it will work, you won't have to spend any more money.

NTBackup is your basic filewise backup program.  You will not be able to do a bare metal recovery from it.  It works pretty well (except in W2K3 Small Business Server, with tape, where it seems to have trouble finding the backup hardware a good percentage of the time), and it's usually my choice for backing up Windows.  Though, my actual choice is not to run RedmondOS at all.

Retrospect

I've worked with Retrospect in the past, full server versions for both Mac and PC.  Retrospect (admitedly not the latest versions) strikes me as the most obtusely funky backup software I've ever worked with.   Very basic tasks are done in very odd ways, and some things I could never make work properly.  I just hope I never have to recover anything using it.

Give me tar invoked from a script, scheduled as a cron job, any day.

What do you recommend for cloning Linux drives and partions?

[client32]

What do you recommend for cloning Linux drives and partions?

cp

[lee n. field]

or dd.

[richyoung]

I have found cp, (actually scp in this case), and dd less htan helpful:  what I want to do is "clone" a drive installed with RedHat Enterprise release 4 update 4.  Using "dd" from a resue disc, the cloning fails if the source drive formats out to be slightly larger than the destination drive - plus it takes hours.  We used to use Ghost, but the newer machines, (Dell Presicion 670s, replacing Dell 650's) have SATA drives that the versions of Ghost I have access to can't handle.  Plus the Grub boot loader to allow multibooting complicates things.

[engineer151515]

JaBack

I think I downloaded it from Komando.com

[lee n. field]

have found cp, (actually scp in this case), and dd less htan helpful:  what I want to do is "clone" a drive installed with RedHat Enterprise release 4 update 4.  Using "dd" from a resue disc, the cloning fails if the source drive formats out to be slightly larger than the destination drive - plus it takes hours.  We used to use Ghost, but the newer machines, (Dell Presicion 670s, replacing Dell 650's) have SATA drives that the versions of Ghost I have access to can't handle.  Plus the Grub boot loader to allow multibooting complicates things.

dd was a somewhat flippant suggestion.  dump might work as well.  But -- were you copying from partition to partition, or device to device (hda to hdb, or hda1 to hdb1)?

scp.  Were you copying across a network?  I can't think of any good reason to use scp on a single machine.

(BTW, there's a really nifty trick in http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxsvrhack/index.html Oreilly's Linux Server Hacks book, for running tar across an ssh connection.  For me that one trick was worth the price of the book.)

Don't know what version you're using.  I've used a not that new version of Ghost from a DOS boot with SATA drives, and had it work fine.  If I had any doubts as to Ghost's ability to deal with Linux file systems, I'd do a sector by sector copy.  I know partition magic can resize ext2 with no problem.