Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 13:43:22 -0400 From: adam <antadam@spymac.com> To: jmlewis@dslextreme.com Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Scheduled system backups program Message-ID: <4124E6BA.7030207@spymac.com> In-Reply-To: <65dca55f1aa205c9a2af8da.20040819095341.wzyrjvf@www.dslextreme.com> References: <65dca55f1aa205c9a2af8da.20040819095341.wzyrjvf@www.dslextreme.com>
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Responses in your quoted message Joshua Lewis wrote: >I have a customer who has learned the hard way (the very hard way) that >backups of your corporate data are imperative. > >Well now that I have spent the last three days trying to recover their >data I need to implement a backup plan for them. > >They only have a few drives for backup (two 40G and a 160G) up so I would >like to make a full backup this week and then schedule incremental backups >from now on. > >The two 40G are probably going to get striped together and the 160 is >going to be a dedicated backup. > >They do not have any tape drives only hard drives and to top it all off >they only have Macs. They are using a dedicated Mac running OS 9.2 acting >as a server. > >I was hoping I could upgrade that system to OS X and I was wondering if >there are any FreeBSD utilities that would work for backing up. Otherwise >I will be setting up a freebsd backup server and I would like to save the >customer the money and not have to go that route. > > This didn't quite make full sense to me (forgive me if I misread it). If they have all mac machines, what kind of machines are they (specs?)? I've noticed with a lot of older macs, upgrading to os x is going to require you to get more ram otherwise your users will complain. I'd suggest not considering os x if they're running anything released before the blue and white g3s (new g4 sales were when os x started shipping standard w/os 9.x and also when os 9 was no longer installed on the later generation g4s).. I have a b&w w/256 megs of ram on it. It's not so bad, but I'd suggest having 384-512 (specs say they only take 512, but they'll actually max otu and handle 1 gig quite well). Since they obviously would want to stay with the mac platform, my suggestion would be to bite the bullet and install os x on all the macs and make the backup machine freebsd. Assume almost any command line utility that exists for freebsd exists or can be compiled for mac os x (see fink.sourceforge.net for the easiest installation management...that's a broad statement so don't REALLY assume that's true w/o doing your own research). If you leave os 9.2 on those macs, you'll end up having to purchase software like mac pc-lan or other networking clients. In the end, it'll be a waste of money when they upgrade to os x anyway. the toss up is buying the os 9.2 software vs. upgrading to os x and them buying os x versions of their software (if they don't run classic in parallel with os x). I don't know much about backups, but i'd say look into rsync (someone else answer w/something better please). To save a few bucks, I'd just install freebsd on their server machine. On a side note, from what i've read (but never experienced) raid support for mac classic can be summed up in 1 word....pthththththe:P Although thye do exist, there are few hardware solutions for mac classic raid and i don't know many people fond of software driven raid (esp if your system crashes completely). >I am sorry for the many OS X questions I have been posting here over the >last few days but the Darwin mailing list did not respond. Does anyone >know of a good OS X mailing list I can join? > > > I don't know of any mailing lists, but I do suggest taking a look at www.macosx.com (forums...pretty good) and www.macdevcenter.com (o'reilly's site). The best source for info about personal experiences would be to check http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/. That's where I always go for mac hardware info on older machines. > >Thank you, >Joshua Lewis > > > Take care, adam
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