[kwlug disc.] backups yet again

[Insurance Squared Inc.]

I know there was a recent discussion on the subject of backups and 
archiving but I didn't pay too much attention....now of course I'm in 
need of doing the same thing.

I've got a small office I need to backup and archive.  The goals are for 
everything to be automated, and to reasonably allow as little time to 
restore should I have a catastrophe with one of the machines.

There's 3-4 windows boxes on the network plus my linux desktop.  Then 
there's a seperate linux server (running centos I think) that's got my 
client database on it (SugarCRM which is a php/mysql FOSS program).  
That's the backup need.  I also have another mandriva server on the 
network that runs my secondary DNS and contains my automated daily 
website backups.  Every few weeks I dump those backups to a DVD (about 3 
gigs of zipped data) and delete them from the mandriva machine.  I'm 
thinking I should probably just add another 500gig hard drive to the 
mandriva machine and use it for the office backups, and continue with 
burning dvds.  Does that sound right?

And should I just install samba on the mandriva server and clone 
specific directories from the windows machines daily?  Or is there a 
better way to do all this?

It's 2008....I don't know why I don't have an automatic answer to such a 
fundamental question :). 

-- 
Glenn Cooke
Insurance Squared Inc.
www.insurancesquared.com
1-866-662-5433

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