[REQUEST] Backup Solution

[JoelM]

I have a potential new customer. Currently he does not want to do a cloud backup for specific reasons. We discussed that could always be an add on later.
He has 2 office computers and 3 shop computers. The 3 shop computers are for creating and accessing drawings for CNC and other machines. One shop machine is Win XP, one is Win 7.
He wants an onsite backup solution to backup drawings stored on the shop machines. If there is a possibility of doing a system backup that would be a plus but not primary priority.
He does want to have versions of backups as he has had a file one day just not open and be corrupt so to be able to go back a month and pull up an old copy of the backup would be good.
He has no server currently and there is not a lot of data. If just doing file backups 500GB of storage would be plenty.
Of course with any kind of always attached to the network backup solution this will not protect against ransomware unless there is also an idea on that.
What I am asking about is ideas on the backup storage device option and software that will allow versioning and handle different Windows os versions from XP - 10.

 

[coffee]

I have a potential new customer. Currently he does not want to do a cloud backup for specific reasons. We discussed that could always be an add on later.
He has 2 office computers and 3 shop computers. The 3 shop computers are for creating and accessing drawings for CNC and other machines. One shop machine is Win XP, one is Win 7.
He wants an onsite backup solution to backup drawings stored on the shop machines. If there is a possibility of doing a system backup that would be a plus but not primary priority.
He does want to have versions of backups as he has had a file one day just not open and be corrupt so to be able to go back a month and pull up an old copy of the backup would be good.
He has no server currently and there is not a lot of data. If just doing file backups 500GB of storage would be plenty.
Of course with any kind of always attached to the network backup solution this will not protect against ransomware unless there is also an idea on that.
What I am asking about is ideas on the backup storage device option and software that will allow versioning and handle different Windows os versions from XP - 10.

Quite a few ways to go with this. Of course my solutions are not M$ based. I think a R710 server with some drives is the cheapest way out. Build it up simple and stock some replacement drives.

1. Load up CentOS and Apache and run nextcloud is one idea. A local instance. This would be more of a manual backup though per user.

2. Load up CentOS and samba to share out a raid instance and then (hopefully they are using windows pro versions) have windows backup to the raid or use some other software.

Im not a big fan of the "cloud backups". Even if you encrypt you run the chance of something going wrong and even though you can access your files you will not be able to unencrypt them. This does happen. You also have to understand that a lot of companies never report break ins until months down the road. So I can understand their thought on backing up to the cloud. Also, It gets expensive fast depending on data and the time it would take to download all your data back.

I have a few business clients on T610's running CentOS7 and it works great. They have been running them for a few years now with the occasional drive replacements. I also run Icewarp on them for calendar/email and such with emclient email clients on the workstations. Works the real treat. Im looking into Axigen though as I see the support is more robust than Icewarp.

 

[Markverhyden]

If there is a possibility of doing a system backup that would be a plus but not primary priority.

Do they have all the disks for their software, including license keys? That's part of the potential problem, machine dies, no restorable images, no disks for apps.

 

[JoelM]

Do they have all the disks for their software, including license keys? That's part of the potential problem, machine dies, no restorable images, no disks for apps.

They do have the software. If we did a full system backup option it would only be to speed up the recovery but not truly critical.

 

[Mick]

I often plug FreeFileSync here. It will work across all your platforms and does have a versioning option. it will also back-up to a specified external device (e.g. USB stick or similar). Will even work over SFTP if that's of any use. Plus - and your clients sound like the sort of people who'll love this - it's free.

 

[Galdorf]

I find the best Backup is full Image using HDClone i find it is one of the best full image backup software out there.
It has bitlockcopy, as well as being able to create a VM image of your choosing of just used space VERY useful for ancient systems running XP it the computer dies throw new computer up install VM software mount image and your off and running.
I just backed up a server with proprietary software and XP PRO it does not store an data on server that is stored on a storage server that does daily backups i created a VM image 28gb of server software.


Cheap way i did this for a small mining equipment company is use a Synology Nas with 2 hhd and raid 1 they love it each dept and person has their own passwords and work spaces even encryption and versioning and Multi-version backup and antivirus/malware running on it.

What is cool if something goes wrong it emails me with error logs but its been 3 years no issues also make sure to have auto-updating turned on.

Backups are a breeze you can install synology apps on pc when you insert usb storage device then click backup can auto-backup to networked drives or PC's and even cloud if setup.

 

[timeshifter]

What's his objection to cloud backup?

 

[JoelM]

What's his objection to cloud backup?

He is trying to go through some kind of military contract approval process to supply items he will manufacture for them. After that gets done then he may then see what his options are but does not want to deal with anything that would create a potential problem.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

He is trying to go through some kind of military contract approval process to supply items he will manufacture for them. After that gets done then he may then see what his options are but does not want to deal with anything that would create a potential problem.

Still tons of cloud services that are NIST 800-171/DFARS compliant. I had a client of mine that does work for the Navy go through a 3rd party audit...services I had him on...no problem. One of our engineers has a client that also does work for the military, same thing

 

[JoelM]

Still tons of cloud services that are NIST 800-171/DFARS compliant. I had a client of mine that does work for the Navy go through a 3rd party audit...services I had him on...no problem. One of our engineers has a client that also does work for the military, same thing

That's wonderful to know. I informed him when we met that I was sure there were services that would meet the requirements. We do want to make sure we have a good local backup first.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Local is still good to have, makes for speedier restores. But ransomware loves having fun with local backups it finds either connected, mounted, across the network, etc.

Good to have offsite backup that can disengage itself from the network...so it never gets whacked by ransomware.

For compliance, good to have a backup service that allows it to be encrypted with only the business/IT holding the key....that keeps the NIST/DFARS folks happy. And cloud storage...being in the continental US.

 

[JoelM]

Local is still good to have, makes for speedier restores. But ransomware loves having fun with local backups it finds either connected, mounted, across the network, etc.

Good to have offsite backup that can disengage itself from the network...so it never gets whacked by ransomware.

For compliance, good to have a backup service that allows it to be encrypted with only the business/IT holding the key....that keeps the NIST/DFARS folks happy. And cloud storage...being in the continental US.

I agree with all of the 100% I discussed the ransomware concern and also theft or fire which can affect local only backups also. I explained about the ability to encrypt the backup, as you mention, before the data even leaves. This gave him some comfort and is where he started saying he might want to look at it in the future once we had local working.

 

[Romaniac]

Look into Synology as well.