desktop backup for 30-40 computers

p2kone

what is the best way to backup up
30 to 40 desktop machines along with 10 laptops?

already have peoples profiles on a central server in a domain environment but need a way to quickly recover from hard disk crashes on the desktop/laptops machines

any advice or opinions would be great!

regards
paul

joePC

Depending on storage, create a sharded folder for each user on a server and Map it. Get everyone to save all important info on it.

You could also script this using GP's.

p2kone

i was more thinking in the line of creating images of each pc.

is that the normal approach?
does it cost much to buy the software to do it?
what programs would you use?

Anti

you can get software to take a image of each machine after the office closes, but it would be costly and time consuming. Have you tried speaking to any specialist companys about this?

Tom Dunne

You generally treat the operating system and data backups as two seperate entities.

Operating system - ideally, you would have a standard image, so that when the worst happens, you can restore it fairly rapidly. This negates the need to back it up every night.

Data - have the "My Documents" folder point to a shared drive on the networks. Then you only have to back this drive up every night.

Static M.e.

Acronis do a disk imaging solution it cost ~ 30 euros per PC licence. Software is afik.

As mentioned above.

Redirect My Documents to a central server which is then backed up.
Enforce and Make users aware that anything not stored in the My Documents folder is not covered by IT.
Create a PC Image per Type of PC ie. Dell Dimension Gx280, Optiplex 180 etc
for rebuilding users pcs.

Do not get into the habit of Imaging PCs as a file backup solution.

p2kone

thanks people for the great replys

we currently have peoples "my documents" mapped backed to a central server, this server gets backup every night.


so it looks like create a standard pc image for each hardware type and work from there.


thanks for all the replys.