TimJacobs
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What is the cost of Kace? And can it be used for Remote Backups?
What is your customer data backup protocol?
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iisjman07
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I'm currently in the process of getting one or two TB drives and sticking them in a freeNAS server from an old desktop. Right now I use the Linux program 'partimage' for file based image backups, and seeing as the freenas has no drives in it at the moment, I'm backing up to a couple of external hard drives. I also backup the drive mbr using the Linux tool 'dd', and I store these under a folder with the name of the job number of the computer.
Would you be willing to share how you are making these customizations?
parker.casey
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I run FAB's Autobackup4Tech, stick the data on the server, and manually grab anything the customer specified.
maclaptech
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N & P?
N & P??
Ok, look, I'll ask....what's N & P?
Nuke and pave / format the hard drive....
I've been using Acronis TrueImage 2010 for quite some time now to just do a complete image. This way I keep the image for 30 days and can pluck files by mounting the image if the client requests any files not given back to them. This actually takes a long time and would love to hear about streamlining the process. I'd also love to hear more if alluseridsrejected would like to share about how he made that customization where it auto mounts a network share, does a chkdsk and then creates a ghost image of the drive.
DCGPX
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I'd love to see the customisations as well. I started looking at this with using netboot disk but need some spare time to go into it. I'm sure there is a better way than that way and seems you've found yours.
I used to backup my own PC every week using Barts boot floppies and DriveImage and thought of trying to build something similar, but more upto date!!
pc-quebec
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What ever your customers use as BackUp solutions, they have to bring the BAckUp in another location
A typical build for a small customer: 2008r2 server hosting the 2008r2 server of the customer in VM, every day, they use whatever backup solution for their daily backup of data, and once a month ( a Saturday) , I shut down the VM and copy it on a removable HD, so if the hardware fail or the server burn or whatever, I can reinstall this VM in any server build on 2008r2 , as long as I keep it with the same manufacturer processor, Intel-Intel, AMD –AMD . It’s by far the fastest recovery solution for small company ( excluding my costly SAN and failover cluster …)
For the whatever daily backup, many customers like my Goodsync solution; the server copy the drive with data on a workstation in the night ( using goodsync ) , in the morning the operator of this workstation use also goodsync to sync a portable HD and his copy of the data in his WS, they can use a separate removable HD every day of the week
For bigger business I use DPM of Microsoft.
A typical build for a small customer: 2008r2 server hosting the 2008r2 server of the customer in VM, every day, they use whatever backup solution for their daily backup of data, and once a month ( a Saturday) , I shut down the VM and copy it on a removable HD, so if the hardware fail or the server burn or whatever, I can reinstall this VM in any server build on 2008r2 , as long as I keep it with the same manufacturer processor, Intel-Intel, AMD –AMD . It’s by far the fastest recovery solution for small company ( excluding my costly SAN and failover cluster …)
For the whatever daily backup, many customers like my Goodsync solution; the server copy the drive with data on a workstation in the night ( using goodsync ) , in the morning the operator of this workstation use also goodsync to sync a portable HD and his copy of the data in his WS, they can use a separate removable HD every day of the week
For bigger business I use DPM of Microsoft.
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alluseridsrejected
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I have a posting about it here, but it has many new functions added to it :
http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26734
Note: The backup and defrag and chkdsk and most of the functions listed in the WCSauto.cmd script that you are asking about seem to be working well, but watch out for bugs in the the WCSstart.cmd script that executes post boot. Most of it works too, but there are still unfinished pieces in both scripts. This is all a work in progress.
Tony_Scarpelli
Rest In Peace Tony
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We have progressed to many stages of this.
In the beginning we would remove the HD put it into a USB cable/kit/box and back up manually to our backup server which has always had two or more giagantic drives in it.
Then we found Ubunti to boot up a not working OS and backed up over the network or to a USB 500 gig drive. It was tedious as we would create "customername" folder and move everything on their drive into that folder and then xcopy or teracopy that folder to the Network server or USB drive. Ubuntu was a great step forward.
Then we upgraded to gigabyte eithernet and now attempt to backup using that. We have workbenches for a 18 or so workstations so we just leave them to do their thing over the network. It is still not quite automated as much as I like but that is the goal.
We use Acrosnis as well and it is fast for both backups as well as re-imaging drives.
for our retail walk in clients we usually only backup those who are willing to pay $99.99 for that service. Otherwise we just blow them away with fresh install. We used to keep the files 30 days but even with 3 TB drives we now delete files 8-9 days after they are picked up. WE tell clients "you have 24 hrs to verify your files and call us if anything is missing"
When we go onsite we use external USB drives both for backups as reloads or reimaging. We normally do not do imaging onsite.
With business clients we have stopped using backup tapes as they seem to be very expensive and have a very high failure rate so we moved most clients to an acronis image over USB external drive. WE are trying to train our clients to do a test restore monthly if not weekly. I have yet to have an Acronis image fail.
In the beginning we would remove the HD put it into a USB cable/kit/box and back up manually to our backup server which has always had two or more giagantic drives in it.
Then we found Ubunti to boot up a not working OS and backed up over the network or to a USB 500 gig drive. It was tedious as we would create "customername" folder and move everything on their drive into that folder and then xcopy or teracopy that folder to the Network server or USB drive. Ubuntu was a great step forward.
Then we upgraded to gigabyte eithernet and now attempt to backup using that. We have workbenches for a 18 or so workstations so we just leave them to do their thing over the network. It is still not quite automated as much as I like but that is the goal.
We use Acrosnis as well and it is fast for both backups as well as re-imaging drives.
for our retail walk in clients we usually only backup those who are willing to pay $99.99 for that service. Otherwise we just blow them away with fresh install. We used to keep the files 30 days but even with 3 TB drives we now delete files 8-9 days after they are picked up. WE tell clients "you have 24 hrs to verify your files and call us if anything is missing"
When we go onsite we use external USB drives both for backups as reloads or reimaging. We normally do not do imaging onsite.
With business clients we have stopped using backup tapes as they seem to be very expensive and have a very high failure rate so we moved most clients to an acronis image over USB external drive. WE are trying to train our clients to do a test restore monthly if not weekly. I have yet to have an Acronis image fail.
The fastest way to backup
This one is simple, we boot into BARTPE and create a folder on the C drive called "Backup_Feb_12" and drag the contents of the C drive into this folder.
After reinstalling windows using the "keep file system intact" option, we scan the backup folder for virus's then just drag it necessary documents/pics/email etc back into the new windows install.
This saves us A LOT of time as copying 300+ GBs of data across a gigabit network is very time consuming.
Any comments on our method would be greatly appreciated.
This one is simple, we boot into BARTPE and create a folder on the C drive called "Backup_Feb_12" and drag the contents of the C drive into this folder.
After reinstalling windows using the "keep file system intact" option, we scan the backup folder for virus's then just drag it necessary documents/pics/email etc back into the new windows install.
This saves us A LOT of time as copying 300+ GBs of data across a gigabit network is very time consuming.
Any comments on our method would be greatly appreciated.
PCX
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Most People Are Making This Harder Than It Needs To Be
We Pretty much do the same as PCPickup. We have dedicated machines for diagnostics, cloning, data recovery and backup. These machines run Ubuntu or some other form of Linux depending on the usage. We basically make a folder for each customer and then go into their C drive, look for any folders that they made and then pull their Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos, Desktop, Favorites and Contacts folder as well as any other folder that they made in their user account. Once we have finished their new installation, we merge their backed-up folders with their new ones (after we scan them for viruses) and thats it. There are exceptions of course, some programs put their important information folder in weird locations, but thats where you need to ask the customer what they programs they are running, whats important to them information wise and ask them if they keep regular backups of important information. The other exception is that some times you have to clone a failing drive before you can repair a corrupted file system and recover their data.
We Pretty much do the same as PCPickup. We have dedicated machines for diagnostics, cloning, data recovery and backup. These machines run Ubuntu or some other form of Linux depending on the usage. We basically make a folder for each customer and then go into their C drive, look for any folders that they made and then pull their Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos, Desktop, Favorites and Contacts folder as well as any other folder that they made in their user account. Once we have finished their new installation, we merge their backed-up folders with their new ones (after we scan them for viruses) and thats it. There are exceptions of course, some programs put their important information folder in weird locations, but thats where you need to ask the customer what they programs they are running, whats important to them information wise and ask them if they keep regular backups of important information. The other exception is that some times you have to clone a failing drive before you can repair a corrupted file system and recover their data.
parker.casey
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I'm mobile now, but when I was in a shop I had a system with guts hanging out of it, just for grabbing data. I would pull the drive, hook it to the bench system, scan it, and back up the files from it using FAB's. Later on, I started using a NAS and the system that needed fixing most of the time, though I still pulled drives when it made sense.
Pretty much as long as you can retrieve the data when needed, you're good. That said, I don't feel comfortable storing my data on NTFS, and would much rather ZFS for this sort of thing.
Pretty much as long as you can retrieve the data when needed, you're good. That said, I don't feel comfortable storing my data on NTFS, and would much rather ZFS for this sort of thing.
Other than when a customer pays you to clone their drive or backup individual files, in what situations do you decide to clone and in what situations do you decide to just do a backup like Fabs?
The reason I am asking is because I am planning on using partimage (due to command line options and being linux based) to clone drives before doing malware removal. This might be over kill and one downside is that I (as far as i know) would need to do a full restore to get at those backed up files.
I decided against using Fabs in my automation because it is windows based and would be more difficult to do than partimage - but I plan on keeping Fabs around for one-off issues.
I also am planning on using acronis, but as it is windows based as well, it suffers the same ailment of not being easily scriptable - even though it seems to offer better backup options than partimage. But I will be keeping it around for one-off issues as well.
Thanks,
Lumien
The reason I am asking is because I am planning on using partimage (due to command line options and being linux based) to clone drives before doing malware removal. This might be over kill and one downside is that I (as far as i know) would need to do a full restore to get at those backed up files.
I decided against using Fabs in my automation because it is windows based and would be more difficult to do than partimage - but I plan on keeping Fabs around for one-off issues.
I also am planning on using acronis, but as it is windows based as well, it suffers the same ailment of not being easily scriptable - even though it seems to offer better backup options than partimage. But I will be keeping it around for one-off issues as well.
Thanks,
Lumien
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