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RAID is not a backup solution. RAID will simply increase the reliability. I've had many raid 5 arrays fail and loose everything. There are many ways of backing up data and RAID is not one of them.

I agree. But RAID is a place to start.

There are a zillion GUI front-ends for rsync-based backups for OS X. Most of them are even free. Some of them handle backing-up Time Machine backups (Sparse Image files). Then there are industrial-strength backup systems like the ones from TOLIS (full disclosure: I haven't used these. I just know they exist). But, I think with a 10-person office, you probably can get by with something that is rsync-based (rsync is a very powerful UNIX "file/folder synchronization" utility that has been around since dirt. Rsync is included with OS X. Like all UNIX utilities, it is actually a command-line creature; but as I said, there are MANY GUI "front-ends" for rsync for OS X. Checkout this and this list. Let me know when you get through all those, LOL!

Now, let's talk about what MEDIA to backup to: In this day and age, pretty much the only reasonable thing to backup a hard drive to is another hard drive. Nothing else makes sense, cost and speed wise. You have a 6TB Drobo. What RAID mode is it being used in? Let's say it is in RAID 1. That means it will have 50% of its actual capacity, due to the "mirroring". Ok, so that's roughly 3TB (nevermind the formatting overhead). If it is in RAID 5 mode, the Drobo will have roughly 2/3 of its 6TB (or about 4TB). I'll assume you are NOT running RAID 0, 2, 3, or 4. Nor do I personally like any of the RAID levels above 5, because they are either relatively less safe, and/or have sort of "cumulative" storage and performance penalties as the array size grows. If you are doing a lot of random-writes to your server, then RAID 1 (straight mirroring) will give you the best overall performance, at the cost of less storage overall. See this article for more details than you probably want to know right now.

But, I digress... Let's say you have this running in RAID 1. This means that your Drobo is effectively 3TB. That's very convenient; because the world has 3TB drives now. So, here's what you do: Go and get two (to start) 3TB EXTERNAL drives (preferably FireWire 800 (if the server supports FW800. I'm assuming it doesn't support Thunderbolt). Format these as HFS+ (journaled). Name them the same (but not the same as the Drobo, just for confusion's sake). Now, you effectively have two 3TB "backup tapes" that you can "rsync" your Drobo to.

"Rotate" these at whatever frequency you desire (not less frequency than once per week). Take the "new" backup OFFSITE (Monday evening is easy to remember. That way, you can bring the "old" backup into the office on Friday morning, swap it with the "new" backup, and take it home with you on Friday night when you go home. Assuming your business is an 8-5 M-F type thing, set your rsync "incremental" backups to start late in the evening, every evening, like around 11pm (that way, people leaving late aren't a problem). If all goes well (and it should, because backup-to-harddrive is rarely a problem), your drive should be backed-up by the time you return in the morning. If you want to be extra safe, you can even rotate your drives every day, but that is a lot of wear-and-tear on the power and FireWire connectors on the drives; but is the safest overall. Swapping the drives every day also keeps rsync from having to to a BIG backup the first time the drives are swapped; because it won't have to "catch up" for the whole time the "returning" drive has been "away". But DO know that you probably will start having connector problems in a year or two. Big deal. You can replace the drives every freakin' MONTH and still be money ahead over a tape-changer (and

Well, if you choose to backup on OS X native, which your post doesn't state since rsync is on OS X as well, there's BRU Producer's Edition. Time Machine can be a bit resource hungry in my experience, so that may not be the best option for you. On the Linux front, there are a few tools to do the trick. Again, TOLIS Group has BRU Server for Linux native, but that's a higher price than BRU PE is going to be. However, if you're looking for a free product, rsync may not cut it due to the limitations that many others have already mentioned. There's MondoRescue, but again, I don't think that will work to the needs that you require. Though the user 'mlheur' hit the nail on the head in my opinion. You need to focus on your restore needs and then choose a backup application that fits those needs!

I don't know your needs, but if you are serious about backup and aren't looking for a simple personal backup solution, this can be what you're looking for. Please research performance and problema, because I'm not using it myself and can't share with you any insights.

http://www.tolisgroup.com/

retrospect is no longer a viable option for mac. many people have moved to tolisgroup bru (server or "le" for local backups). the unix toolset has been around for many years and is used in many mission critical environments. the mac osx gui is the result of a formal request from nasa for a mac version. :) http://www.tolisgroup.com/press/2006/09.25.html we have bru server deployed at many locations. it does disk-to-disk-to-tape backups easily (d2d2t). incrementals are individual stage files (unlike retrospect that keeps jamming incrementals into the same growing file that inevetibly corrupts/implodes). the gui is maturing...and tolisgroup is the kind of company that follows the old unix rule...each tool does one task and does it well. bru does backups well...and restores well. don't expect any marketing hype from them, just solid, dependable backups AND restores. don montalvo, nyc curmudgeon at large

I would like to humbly suggest these guys. The software was completely self contained (Either static executables, or the dependant libraries on were included). The network agent did a DH key exchange when you first installed it, and after that, each agent contact required a challenge-response before it would do anything. Nothing is ever guaranteed secure, but several very bright engineers who were also experienced sysadmins burned a lot of brain cycles to design the security of this system before a line of code was written. Restores were easy, and you could immediately verify the integirty of a backup when it was finished, and verify that it was still good at any time. When you have a systems failure is not when you want to find out if your tapes are actually any good or not.

In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I worked on the product that preceeded BRU Server, but I have never had financial interest in the current company that sells any BRU product. It was a product I was proud of when we shipped 1.0 back in 2001, and they appear to have made it only better as time has gone by.

I have not looked at the new version in-depth yet. They have 30 day free trial that will always let you restore, even beyond the 30 days. You just can't do more backups with an expired product.

Tim Jones, founder of TOLIS Group will be giving a seminar on backup planning at SCALE 3x on Feb 12th in Los Angeles. Theres over 25 other talks going on as well. If you would like to check out the exhibit hall register with the promo code "free" or for a great discount on ticket use the code "newsp".

Heres some info on Tim's talk:
With Backup windows becoming smaller - because of either the amount of data being backed up or extended work hours being seen in many establishments - backup methods and procedures for reducing the requirement are becoming more important than ever before. Also, with the myriad new regulations concerning archival of data, extended and off-site storage planning becomes more important.

We will discuss many old and new procedures that can be used in most administration environments to alleviate or reduce the backup load.

There were a ton of under the hood changes in 10.3 with respect to the directory services, including a command line utility to change the ip address of the server without damaging the user accounts.

Also, retrospect sucks. Don't bother with it. We're using BRU and haven't looked back.

If you use tar to backup files it can screw you over because if the tar archive get currupted 4K into the file then you can't restore the rest of your files. If you insist on using something like tar I have heard good things about BRU