[K12OSN] offsite backup?

[Petre Scheie]

Will you have 50GB of data right from the start or will it grow to that size over time? 
  If this is just regular user data, not databases--you mentioned their home 
directories--even if it starts at 50GB, the day-to-day changes will be much smaller than 
that.  With that in mind, you might setup another machine in some other place, say, the 
basement of your house, that runs an rsync script every night to copy the day's changes 
from the non-profit's office to your basement.  Getting the initial 50GB onto the remote 
machine over the internet would be a pain, so take it into the non-profit's office, have 
it rsync over the LAN to build the initial copy, then take the box home and let rsync 
run each night.  I do this for a few organizations that I support on the side.  It's 
automatic, nobody has to do anything, and just about any old machine will suffice for 
the remote box.

Petre

Paul Lemke wrote:
> Hi all, 
> So i'm working with a non-profit to get a network going. We have pretty much
> everything taken care of except 1 thing... offsite backup. Currently we have
> 1 server with a 160gb raid hdd. Currently they have a 5gb tape drive...
> which obviously isn't going to work to backup the 50gb I'm estimating for
> their home directories. Just glancing at tape drives... they seem really
> really expensive. 
> 
> So I've only come up with a few solutions. None of which i like. 
> 1. purchase a tape drive - seems too expensive 
> 2. some kind of online backup - seems too expensive, and the place is only
> on a slow cable connection so upload is not very fast. 
> 3. burn a few DVD's every week. - I like the "snapshot" but someone would
> have to sit there and plop in a new blank dvd when it takes more than just 1
> blank dvd, not to mention the reoccurring costs of the dvd's.
> 4. USB Hard drive - fast, easy, cheap (saw a 320gb 1 for $150 today), but
> the reliability is an issue. 
> 
> Out of the 4, I like the USB hard drive the best. I'm just worried about
> reliability. I can imagine the secretary taking the hard drive home with her
> and dropping it on the floor and then it's busted. Or it falls off the desk
> or something and they are screwed. 
> 
> So the questions... 
> 1. Is a USB hdd backup a reliable solution? 
> 2. What other alternatives are there that i'm missing?
> 
> And what software would you recommend? 
> 
> Thanks!
> Paul 
> 
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