Free backup solutions

EJizzel

I wanted to know if anyone had any suggestions for a free or Open source backup solution that I can use in a windows environment. I keep running into Zmanda but it looks like it runs on Linux and need a Samba server, I have ZERO Linux. Im looking for the ability to run weekly backups of a few computers and something thats easy to implement.

sprkymrk

EJizzel wrote:

I wanted to know if anyone had any suggestions for a free or Open source backup solution that I can use in a windows environment. I keep running into Zmanda but it looks like it runs on Linux and need a Samba server, I have ZERO Linux. Im looking for the ability to run weekly backups of a few computers and something thats easy to implement.

The built-in Windows backup, maybe?

EJizzel

My apologies for not making it clearer, Im looking for the backups to be saved maybe to a server or centralized location.

dynamik

Are you looking for an online solution?

ntbackup will work over the network.

undomiel

I concur that ntbackup would probably be the easiest solution here.

Mishra

EJizzel wrote:

My apologies for not making it clearer, Im looking for the backups to be saved maybe to a server or centralized location.

You can schedule ntbackup to save to a server or central location.

I assume you mean you want a backup solution that you can schedule jobs centrally? Something easier to manage than ntbackup?

hypnotoad

For ours, we tried a bunch of open source programs -- Bacula, RESTORE, ZManda, a few others. We tried everything, including vm appliances. Finally, we settled on NTBackup (map network drives and you can back them up). NTBackup can be scripted and scheduled, too.

We also use robocopy (part of the windows resource kit) and batch files and the windows scheduler. I know it's not fancy, but it's very reliable and we know exactly how the backups should work. We have 11 servers being backed up with about 2-3 terabytes of data.

undomiel

Ah, the mention of robocopy reminded me of something we're using here at work for replicaiton of our DFS which could also be used as a back-up solution. Unison http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

It's a great little program and it is cross platform as well which was a plus for us.

From the details you give though I would still probably do ntbackup.

EJizzel

I wanted to tell everyone thanks for all there help. I decided to use NTBACKUP as my client and backup a few files from about 5 PC's to a networked PC, then backup that networked PC to a external HDD. This solution seems like its the best and cheapest . Once again thanks

Uranium-235

Xcopy

JDMurray

Have a look at the freeware/shareware backup utilities at majorgeeks.com. I like SyncBackSE quite a bit, although I use Norton Ghost where ever I can.