I would say I need to backup "most" of the PC.  The small group is
mainly developers connected back to HQ via a VPN over the internet.  I
really can't box them into a data location due to the nature of their
work.

I think if their PC died I would go with a fresh install and try to
recover data, however the personnel in question may have other ideas.
These people are used to working within a 7x24 shop model and now since
they chose to be remote, that model along with a "don't spend lots of
money out there" mandate kind of exists.

It's quite a touchy and political mess that really should come to an end
IMHO for various business reasons, but that's beside the point and off
topic.

While rsync is a good idea, the slow restore time would be painful and
cause the developers to call for my head.

I'd like to put something in place where it would be either something
they can do themselves, at a minimal cost and amount of work for me.

I thought about maybe just making ghost floppies for each of them and
putting a large disk out there, or adding a second disk to their systems
and running them with software raid 1 within windows XP.

Thoughts?  

Paul C.

-----Original Message-----
From: Legato NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU]
On Behalf Of Darren Dunham
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 4:55 PM
To: NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [Networker] I'd like some input from the list on this....

> We've got a remote location of between 5 and 10 PC's where they are
now
> requesting backup.
>
> The easy answer would be to place a storage node with a small
> autochanger out there and be done with it.
>
> However, this would be a rather high cost for so few people.  I'd love
> someone else to give me their perspective on the issue and maybe
> something they did?  I can't run backups over the internet.  It would
> take forever.

Do you need to backup the whole PC for restoration, or would someone be
more likely to do a new build/install/ghost if the PC died?

If so, you might be able to isolate storage on the PCs, (My Documents,
etc...) and use periodic rsync or other synchronization back to HQ.

Then back up the HQ storage.

There are a few drawbacks to this plan that might make it unsuitable for
some environments, but it's an option.

Rsync might not honor all the windows ACLs
Might not identify the correct data to backup
Rsync would keep most data that crosses the network small, but a
  recovery would still need to push all or most of that data back, which
  would take a long time.

--
Darren Dunham                                           ddunham AT taos DOT com
Senior Technical Consultant         TAOS            http://www.taos.com/
Got some Dr Pepper?                           San Francisco, CA bay area
         < This line left intentionally blank to confuse you. >

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