GFI Backup Home Edition is a free backup tool for desktops and laptops which can also be useful in a corporate environment. The number of and laptop workers who only stop by the office every now and then to synchronize their data with corporate servers is constantly growing, as is the number of workers who telecommute. As such, the need for a good desktop backup tool is increasing. Windows XP has a nice backup tool, but it is hopelessly outdated, while Vista’s backup tool is probably the weakest component of that otherwise great operating system. Windows 7 has an improved backup tool, but it is certainly no match for GFI Backup, a newly-developed backup and recovery software.

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Do you have users in your organizations who never logon to the corporate network with their laptops? In such cases, you have to make sure that they backup their laptops at home. I tried one solution with my own laptop and I am quite content with it. I connected the external hard drive Seagate Freeagent Pro via eSATA to my laptop. As backup software for my files, I used Autobackup which comes with Freegent Pro. To backup the whole computer, I used Windows Vista’s Backup and Restore Center.

Freeagent is available in three sizes: 320GB, 500GB and 750GB. I opted for the biggest drive because I like to keep old backups as long as possible. Amazon offers it for less than $200. You can connect the drive through USB or eSATA. For the latter you need an eSATA card adapter. I think, it is worth the extra 30 bucks because it is much faster. USB 2.0 supports up to 480 Mbps and eSATA 3 Gbps. You won’t always reach this speed, though, because there are bottlenecks like drive speed or the performance of your laptop.

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Even though USB memory sticks are quite reliable, there still is the risk of losing it, or even worse, that somebody might steal it from you. The data, you store on your memory stick is probably vital to you; otherwise you wouldn’t bring it with you always. Hence, it is important to backup your memory stick regularly and make sure that nobody is able to access the data on it, if it gets into the wrong hands. It is certainly no solution to just copy all files manually every now and then. It is the first law of any backup strategy: Never backup manually! The reason is obvious. It is easily forgotten, and the probability is high that if you ever need the backup its data is outdated.

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Submitted by rork

DeltaCopy is an open source, fast incremental backup program. Let’s say you have to backup one file that is 500 MB every night. A normal file copy would copy the entire file even if a few bytes have changed. DeltaCopy, on the other hand, would only copy the part of file that has actually been modified. This reduces the data transfer to just a small fraction of 500 MB saving time and network bandwidth.

DELTACOPY

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Data Protection Manager 2007 RC is finally out. I have been waiting for this already for some time. Just some days ago, we had a serious problem with our current backup solution, Symantec Backup Exec. We didn’t renew our service contract with Symantec because I am seriously considering moving to DPM 2007.

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Jason Buffington, the “Data Protection Guy” at Microsoft explains the difference between DPM 2006 and DPM 2007 (Data Protection Manager) with respect to continuous data protection. Whereas DPM 2006 uses a file system filter “to grab a copy of the file operation”, DPM 2007 uses a VSS writer (Volume Shadow Copy Service) instead.

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In this last post of my series about Backup Exec 11d and Continuous Protection Server (CPS), I will sum up my view about Symantec’s CDP solution.

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Backup Exec 11d now offers CDP functionality for Microsoft Exchange. In this third post of my series about Backup Exec 11d, I will explain how one can backup Exchange with Symantec Continuous Protection Server (CPS).

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Last week, I introduced Symantec Continuous Protection Server (CPS). Today, I will discuss, how CPS interacts with Backup Exec 11d.

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This article is part of a series about my experience during my trial of Backup Exec 11d and Continuous Protection Server (CPS), Symantec’s CDP tools. I will discuss CPS, how Backup Exec and CPS interact, and how continuous protection of Microsoft Exchange works. Today, I will start with CPS.

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I just installed Symantec Backup Exec 11d and was somewhat surprised that there are no major changes to the core product, the good old backup tool that copies your files to tapes. Then, why did Symantec release a new version? The major changes come with Continuous Protection Server (CPS), which was originally planned as a stand-alone product. Since version 10d, CPS has become a component of Backup Exec. It seems that Symantec focuses now on Continuous Data Protection (CDP) . This raises the question, whether conventional backup tools will soon vanish from our server rooms.

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I was quite surprised when someone from Microsoft told me that DPM v2 Beta 1 not only allows backups of Exchange, SQL Server, and SharePoint, but also supports tape libraries. This would make DPM v2 a serious competitor to backup tools like Symantec Backup Exec or CA ARCserve. It made me quite curious to try DPM v2. Microsoft’s latest CDP solution certainly is an interesting backup tool. However, Beta 1 has one major shortcoming.

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The final of Backup Exec 11d will be available on the 6th of November. It will support backups of Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server. I tested the CDP component of Backup Exec 10d a while ago and I liked it better than Microsoft’s DPM 2006. Both companies offer new versions now and it seems that Symantec is a bit faster since there is only Beta 1 of DPM v2 available at the moment. I am currently testing DPM v2 and I’ll report about it here soon. I certainly will also try Backup Exec 11d. We were about to introduce Symantec’s CDP solution, but I decided to postpone this until I tested the new versions of both tools.

Some days ago, I posted a list of backup tools for Microsoft Exchange supporting Continuous Data Protection (CDP). Meanwhile, I tested Lucid8 DigiVault, a CDP solution that is easy to manage and an interesting option for bigger companies.

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Yesterday, I discussed the Microsoft’s Data Protection Manager’s (DPM) advantages over traditional disk-based backup software. However, DPM also has some disadvantages. Some of these shortcomings are related to the fact that DPM is a CDP solution; or to the fact that it is just version 1.0.

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