I need backup software to use on our small business network. We have about 25 PC's. They include NT, Win2000 Pro, and Win 98, and possibly even a couple of Macs. We have two main buildings. I want to backup all of the PC's from one building at the other site on a PC hard drive. I can put one large backup hard drive on a PC at each site. The hard drives could be installed on any of platforms. By having one building backing up the other I would have an offsite backup. There is a wireless microwave connection between the buildings. Any comments or suggestions which software to use is welcome. I don't have the backup software yet, so your experienced ideas will help. Thanks, JJ

Why backup the entire contents of the hard drives? Why not just back up the data? Why not educate people to keep the data on network shares rather than on there local drives? I work in a large corporate environment and when we order and receive new PC's too replace those that are defective or coming off lease. We create an image using Norton's Ghost. We then deploy the PC to the user and it becomes their responsiblity to keep their data backed up. We then do daily backups of the data shares on the server and the tapes are stored off site. Here is an example of what happens when a hard drive fails: We replace the drive and use the ghost image file to restore the drive back to the day it was deployed or to the latest updated image file for that model. one of the draw backs to this is that you may have to install some applications that are specialized for their position.

Thanks for the good input. Using Ghost when deploying new PC would save us tiime. On the backups, we would not be backing up entire hard drives, just the data from each one. Our people can't be trusted to backup there own data, some of them can barely get to work on time. But the do have valuable data that needs backing up. JJ

I like veritas backup exec's interface but have been running into too many problems with it lately and Arcserve hasnt been producing any problems at the sites where it is installed. I would say go with arcserve.

I guess Arcserv is the standard in the industry...but it's all what you get used to, as long as it works ok... One thing to consider...there is backup software that will automatically back up selected directories (My Documents) on a users PC to a server at certain time intervals... For example, you could set it up to back up each users My Documents folder every hour to your server...then you do a normal backup on the server on tape... This will help those people who not only can barely get to work...(That's another problem!)...but as long as they save their stuff in My Documnets, it automatically gets pushed to the server... Check out the Replicator... http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptprofiler.asp Good Luck Steve

I suggest you set the default save location for the users' applications to a server share, so they'd have to be going out of their way to save anywhere but the server. Assuming your users are primarily working with Office, you can create a customized administrative installation of Office using the ORK, and preconfigure all of the apps to save to the server location. On the Windows 2000 Pro clients, you can additionally use Folder Redirection to map My Documents to the server share. You REALLY ought to find a solution other than backing up hard drives over the network. This will rapidly become unmanagable, will generate loads of unneccesary traffic on your LAN and WAN, and is more prone to error than simply helping the users find a way to save to the server without thinking about it.

You said "We won't be backing up the entire hard drive". To get all of the data you would have to backup the entire contents. If you can't get these people to save to the server, what's to stop from putting everything at the root of the c: drive or to another folder of their choosing? I would suggest roaming profiles. this way each time they log off the contents of their user profile is saved to the server. This is assuming you can get them to save to the proper directory.