Automatic backup to PC

[daedality]

I just started a small business building and repairing PCs and I was recently hired buy another small business owner. He has 5 computers in his office, all which run Quickbooks. He told me that he wants a server that he would be able to temporarily use as a computer if one of the 5 computers in the offices goes down. I decided that the easiest option would be to build a PC with Windows XP. The PC I'm building will be running RAID to mirror two 500GB hard drives.

Problem is, I've never done this before and I need a way to back up the quickbook information from the 5 PCs over to the new one in the middle of the night. (He leaves his computers on. Not my problem so I don't care)

If I have to buy a program, I can simply add it to the building cost so that's not a problem. I'm willing to spend up to 250 on it but would prefer cheap and efficient. Any ideas?

[deachus]

I use Server 2008 and use the built in Windows Server Backup and it works great. It is also the easiest program to use to restore lost or deleted files.

You can install Server 2008 R2 for free and use it for 180 days. Have to buy license after that which costs about $700 for Server 2008 Standard.

[Gogeta]

cwrsync

Totally free and provides the exact functionality you're looking for. It would be ideal to save the backup commands in .cmd files and use the Windows task scheduler to fully automate the process.

[daedality]

cwrsync

Totally free and provides the exact functionality you're looking for. It would be ideal to save the backup commands in .cmd files and use the Windows task scheduler to fully automate the process.

Um.. I'm having some issues. This is extremely complicated and the only COMPREHENSIVE tutorials I can find are to upload to online servers. Keep in mind I've never done this before.

[Easybeat]

How about Windows Home Server? I used it for a few weeks a while ago and it was fairly easy to use and install.

Also available on a trial basis as well.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...o/default.mspx

[mattyback]

You might want to try Genie Backup manager, super easy to use and no to expensive http://www.genie-soft.com/

[rogard]

ReadyNASDuo

http://www.netgear.com/Products/Stor...adyNASDuo.aspx

It does everything you want out of the box and comes with, it can do a scheduled share backup from a workstation...or if you really fancy use readynas vault and backup to a remote datacenter too

..Oh yeah and you get a 3-year hardware warranty..email alerts if something goes wrong (hard drives over temp, hard drive fails etc etc)

[zanzabar]

the esiest way to to get vista biz or windows home server and use the built in tool. XP dose not have volume shadow copy so it cant use a file while its open, and has no built in tool.

its not like xp is faster or more stable than vista or win7

if u have to use XP then i would do acronis they have a backup tool that dose network

[Serra]

I'll say first that the suggestions involving servers are probably the best route, followed by purpose-built non-free solutions (like Acronis). Failing those, on the free side of things I have used Cobian Backup before with some success (not their latest version, I was probably on 6 or 7 at the time). It's a simple, free, backup program that creates full or incremental backups of selected files/folders on a schedule. One interesting twist of the program (when I used it) is that it did not compress or encrypt data, it just backed it up. This can actually be an advantage in some organizations as the staff may not have the ability to figure out how to open an archive.

I would imagine that to use it in this way you would determine the best settings, then copy them to each computer. On the backup server you would create a folder for each client and point each client at its network folder.