Best backup solution for this network?

[brockalee]

I was reading Angry_Geek's thread about his NAS box builds using FreeNAS and want to try it for one of my clients.

They have 10 PC's.

7 x Win 7 Home
1 x Win XP Home
1 x Win 2003 Server (Apparently used only for an internet machine)

The owner wants "everything backed up" and wants a cloud service backing up the backup. I was thinking of doing periodic full backups to the NAS, along with "data only" backups for each machine, then using a cloud service to backup the "data only" backups.

I know the home editions of Windows 7 do not let you backup individual files, so I'll need a different program to take care of the PC's data.

Any suggestions, and does this plan seem reasonable, as it's not really practical to do full backups to the cloud for this many pc's.

 

[krtechsolutions]

It all comes down to money.

Does he want an image based solution?
File level on just the my docs?

To me everything is an image but who knows exactly

I am betting once a price is shown to them they will change their mind but maybe not

 

[Benchtech]

I use idrive.com for my customer cloud based backup you can select files, or directories.

Simple to setup, it even allows for the option of backing up as soon as the files is made, updated, etc.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Are the Windows 7 Homeless editions Premium? Because the backup there is workable for some stuff, depending on the solution you come up with.

Anyways...what type of data do they need to back up?
What are the clients needs for fast disaster recovery? Do they want to be able to recover/restore a machine to new hardware quickly? Or is just getting the files back good enough?

Tell me more about this Windows 2k3 server...what do you mean by "internet machine"? Or what does it hold? I hope it's not running RRAS as a router for this network (basically internet connection sharing)....OMG the thought of a Windows box with a NIC on a public IP running as a router frightens me...I'd want to format that thing after just an hour on the internet exposed on a pub IP.

 

[bigdessert]

Tell me more about this Windows 2k3 server...what do you mean by "internet machine"? Or what does it hold? I hope it's not running RRAS as a router for this network (basically internet connection sharing)....OMG the thought of a Windows box with a NIC on a public IP running as a router frightens me...I'd want to format that thing after just an hour on the internet exposed on a pub IP.

That's actually really funny. There is another tech in our town that does just this. I just shake my head in disgust every time I run into an install of theirs.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

That's actually really funny. There is another tech in our town that does just this. I just shake my head in disgust every time I run into an install of theirs.

Absolutely frightening!
*Windows internet connection sharing stinks...performance wise.
*I've done my share of lost of "Microsoft Proxy Server" installs..and its successor...ISA. That was years ago, wouldn't touch them now....get your network behind hardware firewall/NAT/*nix firewall distro...or I won't touch it.
*Windows itself sitting on a public IP address these days...consider your rig hacked within a day...within hours even. Now...yes a tech can sit and "lock down" the server in a few hours...it's a lengthy process, I used to do it a lot back when I built/supported public gaming servers and had them co-lo'd in big data centers. You uninstall a lot of components..disable lots of services, strip down network components, it's a lengthy process. Most people don't take the time to do that. And this was years ago...I flat out would not do it now...get it behind a hardware firewall single homed (just one NIC).

 

[brockalee]

It all comes down to money.

Does he want an image based solution?
File level on just the my docs?

To me everything is an image but who knows exactly

I am betting once a price is shown to them they will change their mind but maybe not

He wants imaging and some sort of replication in the cloud also.

Are the Windows 7 Homeless editions Premium? Because the backup there is workable for some stuff, depending on the solution you come up with.

Anyways...what type of data do they need to back up?
What are the clients needs for fast disaster recovery? Do they want to be able to recover/restore a machine to new hardware quickly? Or is just getting the files back good enough?

Tell me more about this Windows 2k3 server...what do you mean by "internet machine"? Or what does it hold? I hope it's not running RRAS as a router for this network (basically internet connection sharing)....OMG the thought of a Windows box with a NIC on a public IP running as a router frightens me...I'd want to format that thing after just an hour on the internet exposed on a pub IP.

Yes, it's Home Premium. And from what I understand it will do a full backup, but you can't select certain files. I believe you need Pro for that.

Backups will be things like documents, Quickbooks, and the databases for a few key programs. They will want to be able to recover quickly from a machine dying.

The 2K3 server was once used for access to a program that I don't believe they use anymore. A guy just uses it to get on the internet during his lunch breaks now.

 

[BDNTech]

Use an online backup service that has network drive support (as long as you don't need an Open Files Agent on the network drives) then you would only need to install the backup client on one system and backup all the pcs (networked or mapped drives) from there.
Whatever you set for the local backup to the NAS should be separate and distinct that way you have a better chance of recovery.
Imagine something goes wrong with your NAS backups then your offsite backup is garbage too.