[pmcx9]

I have a server with 12 workstations and would like to schedule a nightly automated backup of the servers hard disk including the operating system. At present I manually clone the disk once a month using Norton Ghost to a USB drive and then remove it.

Is there software available that can do this automatically? Most software appears to work in Windows and consequently cannot back up the operating system from what I can see?


Cheers.

[Harley]

Have you looked at ArcServe?

[ceez]

i dont know what software you could use but can you do an unattended schedule of ghost?

btw, love that avatar!

[Mpak]

What siaze is your server's hard disk? What's it configuration?
Many sysadmins, e.g. me, use ntbackup.exe with tape devices. Usually it's enough.

[techtype]

This is ultra-easy (built-in scheduler - works within Windows) with Acronis TrueImage Server 7.0. I do exactly this to a second (or in some cases USB) hard drive.

[ME2U]

Try Drive Snapshot, works within Windows XP/NT/2K and can restore via DOS.

[pmcx9]

not got back to this for a while. thx for replies.

I am not keen on tape, its old fashioned isnt it?

I have daily file back up in place to a USB drive but would prefer whole disk back up. I will take a look at snapshot and acronis.

Let me get this straight; drive snapshot backs up without booting out of windows? does this really work? surely it cant back up all files this way? also can it see usb drives?

[ChrisLittle]

You could use Symantec (formerly Powerquest) V2i Protector Server or Small Business Edition. It does online snapshots (images) of 1 or all your volumes. It runs as a service and takes little overhead. The full version does full or incremental backups too. I've deployed it in 2 environments with great success. The full server version is not cheap but the small business is reasonable. you just can't do incrementals with small business edition.

[Swerver]

Veritas NT backup (default windows) does not backup openfiles ect should not be used to install a full backup of the OS

We use Veritas backup exec + the open the file agent to get full backups of our system

We use it within our company with pretty much all the agents and 50+ CAL licenses and does the job well over a VPN over a WAN.

There are other apps you can use but in this case quality = money
I dont know of any free or inexpensive apps that will do what you want it to do.

Depending on your topology and infratucture it may not be so costly for a small network.