backing up 3 computers on 1

Z

zyggi

New Member
hi could you help me becouse I have 3 computers at my work and I have important files on each of them and i would like to set up maybe 4th one for back up. I'm not sure what i should do and how to do it thank you !!
 
set the 4th hardrive to allow sharing with only the 3 computers (make sure you give them full access) then one the 3 computers, go under network and the back up drive should show there where you can just copy the files to it. or you could just get a network harddrive
 
Troncoso said:
set the 4th hardrive to allow sharing with only the 3 computers (make sure you give them full access) then one the 3 computers, go under network and the back up drive should show there where you can just copy the files to it. or you could just get a network harddrive
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should I put the 4th on with clean Hard Drive and connect them together using modem ?? do you have maybe anything how to do that ?? thank you !!
 
It sounds to me like you may need to come up with some sort of data backup plan, better than just setting up another PC to backup files on. That's a start and it shows you have an interest in preserving your data, but it's still just a start. You should at least look into a RAID 1 at a minimum, so in the event of a single hard drive failure, you hopefully have a mirrored image as a backup. Why I say hopefully, is because what if the power supply croaked and took both drives with it? It could happen.

RAID 5 would be a better choice because it adds a minimum of one more drive to the array and you could lose any drive in the array, but the data is preserved on the other drives. However, if you lost another drive before replacing the failed drive, then you would be facing a significant loss. It still also has the inherent risk of complete loss, in the event of some sort of catastrophic event such as a power surge frying your drives, a fire, flood, etc. I don't want to sound like I'm lecturing, but data loss is a company killer and since you mentioned this is both at work, and that the files are important, it's definitely time to take the leap into securing your data.

What I would recommend at a bare minimum, is if you have a spare system available to use as a server, purchase a quality RAID 5 capable card, pick up some quality drives (3 to start) and set up your array. You don't need a dedicated server OS, but it's not a bad idea. WinXP would work fine most likely if that's what you have to work with on the extra system. Set up the RAID 5 array and create a share that's accessible by the other systems on the network and save anything important to the share.

You should also consider some sort of backup for the array. A cheap solution would be a DVD burner and burning at least 2 copies of everything to DVD's. Do this at least weekly. Why 2? Remember that catastrophic event I mentioned earlier? What happens if a fire burned your office to the ground? You'd lose the server and DVD backup that's stored at the office, but all of your data is safe and sound, on the DVD that's sitting in the safe at your house. If you just lost the server somehow, all of your data is still safe and immediately accessible on the DVD at the office.

bomberboysk said:
If you want to setup a windows home server, it has backup options i believe.
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It would violate the EULA, if you used WHS commercially. It's also had issues in the past with data corruption, enough so that I wouldn't even consider using WHS for my measly data at home, let alone anything related to keeping a business operational.
 
BlownFiveLiter said:
It sounds to me like you may need to come up with some sort of data backup plan, better than just setting up another PC to backup files on. That's a start and it shows you have an interest in preserving your data, but it's still just a start. You should at least look into a RAID 1 at a minimum, so in the event of a single hard drive failure, you hopefully have a mirrored image as a backup. Why I say hopefully, is because what if the power supply croaked and took both drives with it? It could happen.

RAID 5 would be a better choice because it adds a minimum of one more drive to the array and you could lose any drive in the array, but the data is preserved on the other drives. However, if you lost another drive before replacing the failed drive, then you would be facing a significant loss. It still also has the inherent risk of complete loss, in the event of some sort of catastrophic event such as a power surge frying your drives, a fire, flood, etc. I don't want to sound like I'm lecturing, but data loss is a company killer and since you mentioned this is both at work, and that the files are important, it's definitely time to take the leap into securing your data.

What I would recommend at a bare minimum, is if you have a spare system available to use as a server, purchase a quality RAID 5 capable card, pick up some quality drives (3 to start) and set up your array. You don't need a dedicated server OS, but it's not a bad idea. WinXP would work fine most likely if that's what you have to work with on the extra system. Set up the RAID 5 array and create a share that's accessible by the other systems on the network and save anything important to the share.

You should also consider some sort of backup for the array. A cheap solution would be a DVD burner and burning at least 2 copies of everything to DVD's. Do this at least weekly. Why 2? Remember that catastrophic event I mentioned earlier? What happens if a fire burned your office to the ground? You'd lose the server and DVD backup that's stored at the office, but all of your data is safe and sound, on the DVD that's sitting in the safe at your house. If you just lost the server somehow, all of your data is still safe and immediately accessible on the DVD at the office.


It would violate the EULA, if you used WHS commercially. It's also had issues in the past with data corruption, enough so that I wouldn't even consider using WHS for my measly data at home, let alone anything related to keeping a business operational.
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Didn't notice the part about it being at a workplace.
 
BlownFiveLiter said:
It sounds to me like you may need to come up with some sort of data backup plan, better than just setting up another PC to backup files on. That's a start and it shows you have an interest in preserving your data, but it's still just a start. You should at least look into a RAID 1 at a minimum, so in the event of a single hard drive failure, you hopefully have a mirrored image as a backup. Why I say hopefully, is because what if the power supply croaked and took both drives with it? It could happen.

RAID 5 would be a better choice because it adds a minimum of one more drive to the array and you could lose any drive in the array, but the data is preserved on the other drives. However, if you lost another drive before replacing the failed drive, then you would be facing a significant loss. It still also has the inherent risk of complete loss, in the event of some sort of catastrophic event such as a power surge frying your drives, a fire, flood, etc. I don't want to sound like I'm lecturing, but data loss is a company killer and since you mentioned this is both at work, and that the files are important, it's definitely time to take the leap into securing your data.

What I would recommend at a bare minimum, is if you have a spare system available to use as a server, purchase a quality RAID 5 capable card, pick up some quality drives (3 to start) and set up your array. You don't need a dedicated server OS, but it's not a bad idea. WinXP would work fine most likely if that's what you have to work with on the extra system. Set up the RAID 5 array and create a share that's accessible by the other systems on the network and save anything important to the share.

You should also consider some sort of backup for the array. A cheap solution would be a DVD burner and burning at least 2 copies of everything to DVD's. Do this at least weekly. Why 2? Remember that catastrophic event I mentioned earlier? What happens if a fire burned your office to the ground? You'd lose the server and DVD backup that's stored at the office, but all of your data is safe and sound, on the DVD that's sitting in the safe at your house. If you just lost the server somehow, all of your data is still safe and immediately accessible on the DVD at the office.


It would violate the EULA, if you used WHS commercially. It's also had issues in the past with data corruption, enough so that I wouldn't even consider using WHS for my measly data at home, let alone anything related to keeping a business operational.
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A spare system you ment 4th computer for the server ?? RAID 5 is better then RAID 4 and RAID 3 ?? I know that the RAID 5 can connect 5 Hard Drives wright ?? DVD ok. Is it hard to put this RAID working ?? is there any source helpfull . pick up some quality drives (3 to start) and set up your array ------ I didn't get this and also "save anything important to the share." I didn't do this before so that's little confused but i would love to try this but first have more knowlede about that thank you !!!
 
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