Re: [cobalt-users] Backup solutions for Qube3

[Malcolm McLeary <mmcleary@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Aidan,

14/6/02 11:37 PM, Aidan Beggan wrote:

> I'm looking for a good, easy to use (tape!) backup solution for a Qube3. I
> guess a combination of Tar and Cron would work but the users are not the
> Linux type.

This is a typical request from a typical Qube3 owner and the typical answer
you'll get will be to add some under development Linux solution and then be
tied to doing things via a command line interface, else you'll be directed
to use the built-in backup capability.

Neither of these solutions are ideal or appropriate.

My preferred solution is to control backups from a standard desktop machine
... either a Mac or a Windows PC.  The product I use and recommend is Dantz
Retrospect <http://www.dantz.com/>.  With this product you can automate
backups to almost any media you like, including CD, Tape, local disks,
firewire disks, etc, etc.

To perform backups you mount the SMB or Appleshare volumes and simply back
them up.  This can be fully automated and scheduled.  The only down side
here is that you can only backup the SMB and Appleshare volumes ... you
can't (at this point in time ... but watch this space) backup the entire
Qube3.  IMHO the critical data on a Qube3 is the user created data.  The OS
can be restored, and the configuration can be re-done.  User created data is
much harder to recreate.

I recommend this strategy because Retrospect is easy to use ... both backup
and restore.

For backups to be useful, they need to be done regularly and done to more
than one backup set.  For this to occur the process has to be automated,
easy to set up, easy to adjust, easy to manage, and supported.

Other solutions will create backups but it is pointless unless you can
restore easily.  Before you choose a solution take time to consider issues
like media management, and what facilities are provided to locate exactly
what you need to restore.

If you buy a VXA Tape drive (I prefer Firewire) you'll probably be able to
get a "kit" which will include a bundled copy of Dantz Retrospect.

Cheers,  Malcolm