What a perfect solution!
I have been using vshadow with the vss.exec command plus dosdev (in XP), plus rysnc, to backup both on the lan and over the internet, using ssh. Itefix's cwrysnc helped as did Adi on the vshadow side.
Problems are that rsync does not like long file names (>256) and is quite slow. But it wins for backups involving .pst files which can be GBs in size, especially over the internet, because it only transfers the block differences not the whole file. This very substantially reduces network traffic and time for .pst files. It is marginal for most other types of file. I guess.
My solution to longfile names is to get everyone to use a new ubuntu linux pc with samba as a file server. Also rsync is much faster in linux when I backup the file server (and no longfile name problems). But people will need to store .pst files locally and will always want to save some files on desktops etc. Backup is absolutely critical for us.
Two questions if I may. Is backing up the whole disk really worth it? I know I have a huge problem because each person stores files in different places. It seems simple. Our setups are all quite similar. But do the backups take for ever, and can you really re-install windows easily from the backup? Does SIS work in XP prof?
Second question relates to psexec (I have been looking for this!). Can it copy more than one file over (eg could I cope over all the files (vshadow, dosdev etc) so that I have no need to store anything locally. This I guess would help on the automation, especially if I can get people to store files only in limited, but similar places so that I can fix the location without backing up the whole drive.
Many thanks |