Hey Tony, thanks for the reply. You know, if it was just for one company
then I would seriously consider it, but I plan to install it on a fair
few servers so all at different companies and I can't really afford it
to be installed on so many. I think at this stage, using msbackup to
backup the system state and all other non-accessible programs
(exchange/sql/clusters/etc) and then use the rdiff-backup for the rest.
I'm in the process of testing to see how it's all going to go. I'll also
try Amanda after rdiff to see which is better.

> Hi Ben,
> 
> You should have a look at a new utility out from PowerQuest
> called V2i protector
> http://www.powerquest.com/v2i/protector/
> 
> It allows you to take a REAL TIME image of your hard disk while
> it is running and then save that to an image file. You can then
> backup the image file at your leisure. The image file can be
> saved to a network drive (ie. Samba share) and can also be
> restored directly from the same share point. It comes with a
> bootable CD that has WinXP embedded (or whatever they call it)
> on it and the V2i management console.
> 
> You can even do incremental backups, so no need to take an image
> of the whole thing each time.
> 
> I have absolutely no affiliation with PowerQuest or any
> companies that sell it, but we had a rep come in and demo this
> product recently and it was absolutely fantastic.
> 
> As for pricing, well it's not that cheap, but it depends on how
> quickly you want the server back up. With this software you can
> have a crashed server restored again in 10 minutes ! The RRP for
> a single server license (ie. to backup one server) is approx.
> AU$1900. The pricing on the website gives it at US$995. You can
> also download an eval copy (timebombs after 30 days AFAIK).
> 
> In the end it's a tradeoff between expense of the software v's
> the cost of downtime if you have to restore the server.
> 
> Just my $0.02
> 
> regards,
> Tony.
> 
> (and this is my first post, hi to the list !)
> 
> 
>  --- Ben Zampatti <ben.zampatti AT infinitem DOT com> wrote: 
> > Hello, I'm not sure what I'm after can be done, but I'll ask
> > anyway. 
> > 
> > I need a way to backup a whole windows 2k server to a linux
> > box. This
> > is how I was thinking of doing it: 
> > 
> > First off, lets say there is a 2k server that has users and
> > all that
> > setup on it. So start by ghosting it. Then do a fresh backup
> > to the
> > linux server, including all the files on the filesystem. Some
> > files
> > don't get copied over though because they are in use, such as
> > NTUSER.dat. Lets say that every night, the backup server
> > running linux
> > then copies all files that have been changed on the 2k server
> > to the
> > backup server, and at the end of every week, msbackup is ran
> > on the 2k
> > server which does a system state and copies that file to the
> > backup
> > server. So this goes on for a few weeks.
> > 
> > Then for some reason the 2k server crashes and you lose all
> > your data.
> > So, the restore process begins - you get your ghosted image,
> > and then
> > you have it backup to where it was when you first done you
> > ghost. Now
> > you need to copy all the files across from the backup server
> > (including the system state) to the 2k server, overwriting
> > everything.
> > You put the 2k repair disk in which restores from the system
> > state. My
> > question is, will this work? will all permissions be restored
> > and the
> > like? If not, is there anything available that will do it,
> > that is
> > free? or am I expecting too much?
> > 
> > Thanks for the help...
> > 
> >  
> 
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