Data backup system

[Isura]

I'm looking at options for doing proper backups for my home PCs. I want to backup my machine and my wife's laptop. Reliability and speed is important for my machine since I use it for work, and plan to do system and data backups daily (OS, programs, app data, and non-media documents).

I did a lot of searching and came up with a few viable solutions. I read that external HHDs are less reliable than internal ones. Plan is to buy an external enclosure and some decent SATA drives. Home Server like WHS + required hardware seems like overkill, and I don't think it works in Vista and Win 7.

Option 1
NAS enclosure connected through ethernet to both machines. Acronis or similar program does scheduled backups.

Issues: Much slower than eSata.

Option 2
eSATA enclosure connected to my machine. Share the drive through windows on the network. Fast eSata for my backups (lots of data), and slower connection for my wife's laptop (only a 100GB drive)

Issues: Will backup software work properly on a shared drive? Any issues with both PCs accessing the eSata drive simultaneously?

Any other suggestions/comments appreciated.

Issues:

 

[corkyg]

I don't understand why you separate NAS from eSATA. NAS simply means "Network Attached Storage." You can have eSATA NAS as well as USB, FW, PATA, SATA . . . you name it. You can also add RAID1 to your NAS giving it a little more redundancy.

Access

 

[RebateMonger]

Backup software will normally send backups to a shared drive, if that's what you are asking. Some backup software won't BACK UP a mapped drive (from the network).

My preference is to keep full image backups of all PCs onsite, with some offsite backups if at all possible. If offsite backups aren't feasible, then I employ online backups (such as Carbonite) to backup critical data files, along with the onsite image backups.

Windows Home Server works fine with Vista and W7, both x32 and x64. I'm a big fan of WHS, espeically if there's more than a couple of PCs, because it's so easy to manage and the backups are very space-efficient. The daily image backup updates typically take five minutes for a hard-wired connection, unless you have added or changed many gigabytes of data that day.

 

[Isura]

Originally posted by: corkyg
I don't understand why you separate NAS from eSATA. NAS simply means "Network Attached Storage." You can have eSATA NAS as well as USB, FW, PATA, SATA . . . you name it. You can also add RAID1 to your NAS giving it a little more redundancy.

Access

Right. What I mean is some drives have only an ethernet output. The data is transfered through the router. That's what I meant by an NAS. The eSata only drive connects directly to the PC. Perhaps higher end models have both outputs though.

 

[Isura]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Backup software will normally send backups to a shared drive, if that's what you are asking. Some backup software won't BACK UP a mapped drive (from the network).

My preference is to keep full image backups of all PCs onsite, with some offsite backups if at all possible. If offsite backups aren't feasible, then I employ online backups (such as Carbonite) to backup critical data files, along with the onsite image backups.

Windows Home Server works fine with Vista and W7, both x32 and x64. I'm a big fan of WHS, espeically if there's more than a couple of PCs, because it's so easy to manage and the backups are very space-efficient. The daily image backup updates typically take five minutes for a hard-wired connection, unless you have added or changed many gigabytes of data that day.

Oh, I didn't realize WHS works with W7. I probably won't use most of it's features but I'm intrigued. What's the file format for the images? How much space is saved? How reliable are the backups? I've heard a lot of complaints about Acronis' reliability. Does WHS work together with the Vista/Win7 backup system?