Backup to CD

[tyketime]

I just bought Retrospect Professional v6.0 for my home office network. I wanted to create a complete backup of my "C" drive to start, and set up the script. 14GB of data was selected. The estimated completion time was 1 day 6+ hrs!??? Of course, that presupposes that someone is there every time a CD gets filled to swap in a new one (so that leaves out overnight and/or unattended processing). So who knows how long it would really take?

 

 

 

My question is... what are other SOHO users using as a backup medium? Are others of you "biting the buillet" for the first big backup on CD? (I don't anticipate the incremental backups to contain 1/10, maybe even 1/100 of that size).

 

 

 

Or are most of you using other hard drives across an ethernet connection?

 

 

 

Thanks for your advice!

 

Brian

[Gater]

Using a combination of a FireWire drive for the initial and recycled backup and CDRW discs for the changes in between the weekly main backups.

 

 

 

You mentioned "C" drive - so I'm guessing a Windows box - with the costs dropping on the IDE drives (recent $10 for 40gb at Office Max or Depot after rebate) that a second drive is very do-able. I've also set up a couple of machines where the second drive bay uses a removable drive. Extra drive carriers are less than $25. The drives can be big enough to just duplicate the drive to the removable IDE and can take the HD and carrier off-site. Doing a backup instead of duplicate, you can still use the CD burner for your changed-file backups in between.

 

 

 

This is one of the better/cheaper alternatives to costly tape systems. Then those that auto-load a tape can run 3 times the cost of your machine. Hope that helps.