18 Jan

If you've ever used BackupAssist to run an rsync job to a remote NAS device, you may be familiar with the built in 'seed' function. This bypasses the need to run a large backup for the first time over the network and instead uses a USB hard drive to move the data manually. After the seed job has completed, the drive is disconnected from the BackupAssist server and plugged directly into whatever is performing the role of the rsync server. Often it's a NAS device, but I also talk to customers who choose to run either a Linux server which has native rsync support or even a Windows box using the free open source CWRsync service.
13:42 / BackupAssist
25 Oct

I often get asked about the best way to create off-site image backups. One logical approach is to use a windows network share for the destination, however because the destination is not accessible at the disk sector level, the incremental imaging feature can't be used. A full image backup must be taken each time the job runs which can take significantly more time as well as requiring a larger amount of storage if you wish to keep multiple images. For this reason, we often recommend that customers stick to local destinations for image backups with history, and plug in either a local dedicated USB hard drive or a pool of USB drives. This approach works very well and allows for multiple images a day, typically taking less than an hour to run on an average SBS server. However the disadvantages of relying on local backups are clear in that they're still susceptible to loss, theft and damage. An often overlooked solution for image backups that combines the best features from both of these methods is iSCSI.
12:35 / BackupAssist