Using Linux for Windows HD Snapshots?

DBordello asks: "Our company is currently backing up weekly to tape. I would like to begin taking snapshots of our NT 4.0 server. My first thought was a Linux box running an Open Source solution. My research shows that most Open Source applications to take snapshots assume that the backup target is Linux based. This presents a problem with mounting the NT 4.0 server. While I could mount the share with Samba, all of the backup applications do not provide options to backup a local mount. What do you guys use to snapshot your Windows network?"

Comments

Envy me ...

[Breakerofthings]

I am currently facing the same problem; here is my solution:

A couple of weeks ago, I convinced my boss to let me replace our entire windows network (workstations; all servers are *nix) with diskless Linux workstations (Gentoo/OpenOffice/Evolution/Mozilla), all participating in a big happy openmosix cluster!!!

(our builds will be speedy-speedy now!!!)

So, my backup procedure will be:
Step 1)back up the NFS server with the users' home dirs

Step 2)Drink BEER!!!!

Re:One word: dd.

[djcapelis]

You have all the empty space still taking up room though. And this may be more for versioning and others where compression and other issues would be highly important. Especially if your trying to store 3 different copies of a few of these things, you don't want the extra room taken up by the empty space.

All I have to say on the subject of your choice of a screename is that people smart enough to be in mensa should be smart enough to not be in mensa.