New home backup regime

The king is dead, long live the king.

Over the Christmas break the license for my beta of Windows Home Server ran out, so I needed an alternative backup / storage solution. I briefly considered Linux with some iSCSI software, Windows with DFS or FRS, or indeed forking out some of my scheckles for a folder sync application.

The requirements were as follows:-

• NTFS, for large file support (12 Gb in some cases).
• Easy duplication of the data (including hierarchy) across multiple drives.
• UNC pathname support, so I could ‘rehome’ my docs, music, photos etc to it.

In the end I opted for a fairly simple solution :-

• A windows machine with a drive for the OS and two additional data drives.
• One of the additional drives would be the primary where folders are ‘rehomed’ to and all data is stored.
• A batch file would fire off ‘Robocopy’ (free in the Windows Resource Kit) to mirror this primary data drive to the secondary data drive.
• Another batch file would fire off ‘Robocopy’ for copying to external USB drives.
• Batch files would be scheduled using AT command line tool and would email results files using the free Blat! command line tool.
• The primary data drive would also be backed up to my ‘iDrive Pro’ account (online 150 Gb storage facility for $50 / year).
• Of course, photos are also backed up to my Flickr Pro account (unlimited online storage of images for $25 / year).

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