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It's 2006 and Backups For Home User Still Tricky?
CranberryKing asks: "What is it about backups that always seems so difficult? I am trying to do a simple backup on my home XP system/s (about 30GB of files) that will write to my DVD burner. I don't want compression (most of it is MP3s, which don't compress well). I want a routine to simply write my selection to the DVD writer and spread it across however many discs are required (rather than me manually approximating and copying to each disc). I want the files on the disc readable from any system, so no proprietary backup wrapper or DAT files, please. My last attempt was using a free program that looked good called Simply Safe Backup, but it created two coasters before crashing with an unknown error. If I can just get a full backup to work smoothly, then I'll worry about scheduling, incremental, and encryption. This seems like a very common scenario for home & small offices. Is there an elegant, reliable & cheap (free) solution to this?"
What is a good system to automatically backup (using ssh/rdiff-backup as the underlying tools, perhaps?) a Windows PC to an internet server hard drive? The client-side should have a nice GUI that can schedule backups. The server side should be a Linux RPM that can easily be installed, and run out of the box with a very simple conf file to set username/password hash/directory. The system should backup snapshots so that it can restore to any point.
Surely this need is common enough that an easy-to-use FOSS solution is out there!
Read my blog: HansMast.com
The last Maxtor OneTouch II I bought was under $200 Canadian . . .
Which means it's about a buck U.S., right?
Not a commentary on the exchange rate, mind you, but on the fact that this would-be Bush-ugee has found that all things computer are expensive as fuck in Canada.