Backup software similar to Windows Home Server

[dickday]

   

Greetings from a Buffalo newbie.  Before I ask my question, I would like to say what an impressive forum this is. I have seen others that were totally out of control, no respect for other members and had way too many threads that were never answered.   Congratulations on maintaining such a pleasant forum.

 

I am about to purchase a  LinkStation Pro Duo 1tb drive and have 3 questions:

 

1. I see that it comes with bundled backup software. It doesn't look like it will do what I need and will probably end up buying different software. I want a backup utility that works like Windows Home Server. It basically ghosts the entire drive on each workstation during the night. In the event of a workstation crash, it can be restored using it's most recent backup.  Anyone know if this exists outside of Windows Home Server?

 

2. The  LinkStation Pro Duo will be used mainly as a file server. I program using a Microsoft language and that engine is loaded on the workstations and the projects will be created on the  LinkStation Pro Duo.  The only time these apps will ever be run would be during development and testing.  The most number of concurrent users that would be accessing the  LinkStation Pro Duo would be 3.   The absolute largest file size would be less than 20MB, most files are considerably smaller.  The total amount of storage space needed is less than 20GB.

I am concerned about latency. Is the  LinkStation Pro Duo fast enough to be a file server under these conditions? 

 

3. In reading your FAQ's it sounds like if I want to use the remote access feature, I must download firmware version 2.03 and install this before remote access will work. Is this still the case? Any chance of getting a drive already updated?

 

Thanks!

 

DickDay 

[Colin137]

Thank you for your interest in our products, dickday. To answer your questions:

 

1. Norton Ghost and Acronis TrueImage are the only softwares that I know of that can image an entire drive.

 

2. You may run into issues if you use a versioning system that relies on file metadata, since the drive runs Linux and does not use a Windows filesystem. How many concurrent users are you expecting? It was cut off in your post.

 

3. That shouldn't be a problem at all. The latency question is hard to answer without a guess of concurrent connections :)

 

4 (i think you meant 4, at least. Cut/Paste can be a irritating sometimes, i know :) ). You may receive a box with updated firmware, but if not, it is simple to update the firmware. Download the updater, extract it, and run it from a PC connected to the same switch or router.

[dickday]

   

Thank you for such a quick reply.  Yeah, cut-n-paste can be a bugger :)

 

The only piece of Visual Studio apps that would be stored on the Buffalo would be Visual FoxPro applications. I avoid using versioning software just for this very reason.

 

MAX users would be 3. Most of the time, just 1.

 

Absolutely no steaming video, no iTunes, just a basic file server.

 

Just to make sure I understand, the remote access feature will allow me to connect to the drive via the internet, correct? Or, is it just within my local network?

 

Thanks,

 

**bleep**

[Colin137]

3 concurrent users should be fine. Since it uses software raid, you'll take a performance hit when multiple users are accessing it, but it should be easily tolerable with only 3 users. The WebAccess feature is just as it sounds, you can access the drive through a snazzy HTTP/HTTPS fileserver with named redirection through our www.buffalonas.com website.

 

I'm not familier with FoxPro, but as long as it just stores basic files with SMB/CIFS, it should be fine.

 

And it looks like our language filter is a bit overzealous... I'll see if we can tweak that :)

Message Edited by Colin137 on 01-08-2009 12:51 PM

[dickday]

   

That's ok, I'm used to it. I just wish that my parents had picked a different name for me :)

 

I'll place the order today.

 

Again, thanks for such a quick reply.

 

Richard :)