NT backups

[treysha]

Hi there...

I can be considered a newborn when it comes to network administration. In fact I've just been thrown into the fire 1 month ago when the IT guy at my office left us in a hurry.

Now you guys at this forum are my best teachers.

Here, I've got a question about NT server backups.

I am running NT Server 4.0 in the office, with tapes as my backup media.

I am beginning to find that backing up my data with tapes are getting more and more tedious, not to mention the hassle when trying to restore my server if it happens to crash.

My question is, are there any other options for backup, apart from using tapes?
I was thinking of simply plugging in a large-capacity External HDD via USB or Firewire to my server and copy all the files and directories, from my server to the Ext HDD. Will that work? And will I be able to restore my server easily from the Ext. HDD if it ever crashes?

Also, I have heard that doing what I just described above is not possible because my OS is NT. Is that due to any incompatibility issues?
I have also heard that those who performed this operation in NT will frequently experience the Blue Screen of Death (the fatal blue error screen in Windows).

Can anyone who have had prior experience wth this please help?
I thank you way, way in advance.

[pave_spectre]

NT has no support for USB or firewire so an external hard drive like that wouldnt work.

I did once find a program that supposedly allowed NT to use USB but it was ridiculously expensive and I havent been able to find it since.

I dont know if a CD or DVD burner might be useful, I suppose it would depend on the type of data you are backing up and how long you need to keep them.

The only other alternative I can think of would be to buy some kind of network storage solution but they can be fairly expensive.

[juniper]

If you are running like arcserve or veritas then there is an option to backup to another drive/directory instead of tape this is rediculouse though for the most part, I suggest you should look into a tape library like an HP ssl 20/20 or something that will change the tapes fo you so you only have to change the tape magazine once a week, you should follow the GFS rotation scheme (grandfather,father,son) and take tapes off site. also try doing incramental backups instead during the week.

heres the scenario with backing up to another HD you should have a daily,weekly and monthly backup (GFS rotation) do you really want to buy that many HD's? rediculous. backups arent just for dissaster recovery they are for jo smo executive saying he needs an e-mail restored that he deleted last week. hehehe!

[Nachopapa]

I would agree on the previous suggestion, so that you don't have too much space taken up by normal backups and do the rotations on your tapes.

Also, if budget allows, to build that server dedicated on holding all those backups for redundancy.

I don't know how familiar you are with the different types of backups so here is a link with some information that is a little handy.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/maintain/operate/14w2kada.mspx

Hope that helps.

[Max Power]

It might be easier and cheaper to stick with what you have. On one of our servers I use the ntbackup utility included with Win 2000 to one tape drive. I think the utility is the same for NT. It's a little tricky to setup but this link should make it easier:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;239892
If that doesnt help, Microsoft Technet provides alot of info on the subject.
Doing a normal backup to one tape every night makes things a lot easier. If you do not have enough room to fit everything on the tape you might just want to include essental data such as user directories, databases, email, system state, etc and leave out directories such as the Winnt directory, all log files, Program files. But this means that when a failure happens you will be re-installing the OS and programs. Depending on the type of failure you might be doing that anyways.
If there is no way to fit everything to one tape even after compressing then you will have to go to 2 tapes or run the incrementals or might have to go to a bigger tape drive but will be big bucks.... maybe $3000 depending on size.
Veritas is pretty good and makes the whole tape backup thing a little easier but costs about $600.