Our organization is looking for a Open Source or very cheap backup solution for bare metal Windows 2003 server systems so we can have a speedy recovery in the event of a system failure,  my boss has given me a deadline to have a system back up in <4 hours but not break the budget trying to do so.

Anyone out there in tek-tips land have a suggestion other than Windows ASR?  Looking for the floppy-less solution preferably.  

"I'm certifiable, not certified. It just means my answers are from experience...not a book"

Well it all depends as to what you consider cheap in this case.  You have to ask your boss how much money you are expected to lose for every hour your server is down and I would budget accordingly.  There are many products out there Acronis, CDP, Christie CBMR among others and although they cost money, I find that they are relatively inexpensive solutions. You can download trial products so you can perform some testing as to what works best for you.

Something cheaper than what we've dealt with (Netbackup) in the past.  We've been eyeing Acronis, and looking to see if anyone still actively uses Amanda.org for windows backups.

"I'm certifiable, not certified. It just means my answers are from experience...not a book"

We are using Drive Snapshot for Server.
It's a very simple, rather old solution, which is not too easy in initial setup and configuration, but is rock solid, reliable and cheap.
You might want to spend an extra one to two hundred bucks for someone experienced in setting this up though. That plus the one-time cost of 99€ should be well within the budget methinks.

"We had to turn off that service to comply with the CDA Bill."
- The Bastard Operator From Hell

DPM and VSS work great. For a 2003 server, Windows Backup works ok as well.

But most importantly, how much data you have to restore will drastically affect the time it will take to get things back up and running. Also, the type of media (disk-to-disk or disk-to-tape).

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Pat Richard MVP
http://www.exchangeblogs.com/
 

One of the best products I have seen is Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery.

You can do snapshots every 15 minutes and roll the server back or do a bare metal restore to different hardware in around 2 hours depending on the size of the data on the drives.

Cost is around £380



 

I've used this software and have had great results.  It can do snapshots of your whole server if needed and at different time intervals.  The software is free from the provider and local backups are pretty reasonable to your hardware is pretty cheap.

http://www.restorepoint.net/
 

http://www.samtechconsulting.com
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Maybe im missing something, but what about Mozy?  I back up a pretty big sql database, and 4 power user desktops for about $30 a month.  It just works, never have to mess with it  Sends me an emailed report everyday, or realtime "i gotta problem" emails.

No hardware/software, just the mozy client.

And im sleeping good.  Did a "Disaster Recovery" on a seperate box.  Loaded os/programs, installed mozy client, logged in, click restore.  Done in about 5 hours total.

After years of messing with tapes and drives and software, and stress about it working or is the tape not gunna work when i need it to, this IS HEAVEN!

Not spam I just really like mozy.  I have no back up worries.  Just lots of other ones.