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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
No offense, but... get a real OS sir! It is very easy to backup using any variety of programs available for OS X, Linux, *BSD, etc. On OS X for instance, one or two clicks will get you a restorable image on an external drive. If your HD dies, put a new one in, boot from the OS X CD, and select the restorable image -- It'll put everything back as it was no problem. (The software in question is Carbon Copy Cloner by the way, but all the tools come with the system as well if you don't mind the command line.)
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.