Do you backup your workstations daily?

In accordance with a japanese itil-like security measures we are going to be required to backup at least 6 of our workstations, but could be as many as 30. We're not yet on an AD server, we will be soon though... I was thinking about having roaming profiles and then backing up those profiles to a tape drive. Our security admin thinks that there's going to be too much data and we'll need a NAS device.

I think backing up workstations is a little overkill and going to be money out the window that should go in our pockets

Do any of your companies do this? I was just wondering what the most cost efficient thing would be....

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

Sie

All users here have roaming profiles and they are backed up from the servers they reside on.

Any local drives arnt backed up.

Thats the same for.....erm...atleast 4 big clients I work for aswell.

It really depends whats residing on those local drives, and if its imprtant it should be on a file server in order to reduce administration when backing up.

Backing up individual workstations seems like a pain to be honest plus imagine all the redundant data / system files you will be storing??

dynamik

You should look into folder redirection: http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/a1b7ce04-708b-4145-830a-cadfc003acd31033.mspx?mfr=true

You might want to do an ASR backup on the workstations occasionally, but there's no reason to do a daily backup of files.

nel

like ppl have already said use folder redirection or roaming profiles to store data on a nas or wherever and back it up to tape. Then you could have a few master images for each type of machine and/or apps installed. That way you could easily re-image a machine and then when it is back up the user can access there files stored as normal.

We usually say if you store data locally its at your own risk

RTmarc

dynamik wrote:

You should look into folder redirection: http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/a1b7ce04-708b-4145-830a-cadfc003acd31033.mspx?mfr=true

You might want to do an ASR backup on the workstations occasionally, but there's no reason to do a daily backup of files.

Yup.

Folder Redirection + Hardware Independent Disk Imaging = FTW!

If a machine craps out, it's pretty much an hour of downtime. Put in new hardware or just format the old drive and slap on image. User logs in and all of their crap is available and ready to go.

ilcram19-2

you should use shared drives and personal user drives for the users to put the data in, then you be able to back data daily from a server,

Sie

BigTone wrote:

In accordance with a japanese itil-like security measures we are going to be required to backup at least 6 of our workstations,

Can you explain these further or point me to some reference material?

Cheers.

blargoe

We don't back up workstations, except for one case where there is an application that is a real pain to install that is fairly critical to the operation of our building - this computer gets Ghosted from time to time.

We are soon going to do redirection for my documents and favorites to their personal network drive, and take away write files/create folders permissions on the root of C so they can't create their own folders and save stuff there. Anything you care about gets saved to the my documents folder that is redirected to the server, or to their group's shared drive.

We're also using the R2 file server tools to block videos and musics from being saved to the drive where My Documents gets redirected. We'll probably give them a local folder to save that stuff into but with no expectation of it being backed up.

BigTone

Sie wrote:

BigTone wrote:

In accordance with a japanese itil-like security measures we are going to be required to backup at least 6 of our workstations,

Can you explain these further or point me to some reference material?

Cheers.

Unfortunately no

All of the crap we are getting from them is in Japanese so we are having people translate it and then from there our security guy is deciphering that and putting it into our business requirements. If you google japan and jsox you might be able to get some info though.

It looks we're going to be spending about 10k on a NAS device... I just hope to God they aren't going to backup 6-32 workstations all separately. We really need to send the important stuff to a roaming profile or shared directory or something...

sallyxi

I don`t quite understand your point, what you want to mention to me?

albanga

I totally agree with everyone, backing up workstations seems like a lot of work, time and money.

You really need to set up some romaing profiles and folder redirection to a server and as far as the workstations go, then get the o/s totally up to scratch (updates, SP) install all applications including there updates and make an image.

We run terminal services and have quite a number of different "dumb terminal" PCs. So i put together a ghost server which holds all my images and everytime a workstation dies or even goes a little funny i just put an image right over the top and its like new again.

This is super fast and very easy to maintain. Why do they want you to back up each workstation?

pwjohnston

Ya that sounds pretty ridiculous to have that many workstations and no centralized server. I'd tell your Boss to stop being cheap and to get their act together. What it's going to cost in time spent ensuring backups are done and testing for almost 30 machines would probably offset the cost of implementing an AD Network with storage.

What kind of files are being backed up? I remember recently seeing a 2 TB Buffalo Station NAS for under $600.

Kasor

A easy way is to setup a Network Folder to each profile and have them save the data to that folder or backup anything to the network folder before COB.

hypnotoad

Batch file & scheduler:

robocopy /e /COPY:DATS /R:1 /W:0 \\pc-name\c$\Docume~1\primaryuser\Desktop g:\desktops\primaryuser

repeat as needed....It ain't pretty, but it works (yes, we offer folder rediection and people still save things on the desktop occasionally. it is the only folder i "unofficially" backup. we also only have 1 user to a PC mostly).