A Vice President approached me and asked me to backup 130gb of data on

[Alt255]

A Vice President approached me and asked me to backup 130gb of data on 60 stand-alone (no network) computers in one week. I told him it was possible. I would make images of the drives. It could be accomplished in 40 hours.<br>
Then he lowered the boom. My budget was $500, firm. &quot;Just do it.&quot;<br>
The deadline is December 15, 1999. I am alone.<br>
<br>
Any ideas, short of hari kiri?<br>
<br>
Why is everyone getting anxious about Y2k, now of all times?

 

[MasterRacker]

I feel for you. I won't ask why they're not on a network. I don't know how you physically move 10-20 GB of information off a machine in any reasonable time without a network. <br>
<br>
My only thought at this time is to take a 20GB disk, put it in a machine, copy what you need, sneakernet the disk to a network station, upload to a server, lather, rinse, repeat... Fits the budget, but I don't know if you have the hours. Sorry I can't help more.<br>
<br>
Suggestion: When this is over, go to <A HREF="

http://www.myboss.com"

TARGET="_new">

http://www.myboss.com</A>

and post this one.

 

[Alt255]

Thanks, MasterRacker. The corporation consists of a loose collection of quasi-independent companies. We don't have a network deficiency in MY workplace but I have been loaned out to another for a week. The company in question has consistantly balked at putting out even a few thousand bucks to run the first lines. The machines are spread out in over several acres. There are three small LANs involved but no connections among them. My only solution, so far, has been to throw together a bare-bones system from spare parts and order a 14gb tape drive and tapes with the $500. I'll pull the hard drives and back them up until I run out of time and tapes.<br>
<br>
Penny wise, computer foolish.<br>
<br>
Thanks again.

 

[MasterRacker]

Yeah, that'll work too. Probably a little more efficient than my original thought. <br>
<br>
Get 'em to put a price tag on what it would cost to regenerate the info on one or more of the machies if it were lost. You ought to be able to come up with a pretty short ROI on a simple network to provide at least centralized backup capabilities if not also information sharing. When you sit back and just observe how the suits operate, it's amazing the economy moves at all, let alone as well as it is lately. <br>
<br>
Oh well, just gotta get by one day at a time I guess.... Good luck!

 

[FredWagner]

You might consider whether they really need to back up entire hard drives, or just datafiles. If the latter is true, you could get by with an external (parallel port connect) Jaz drive - connect to a machine, pull the data directories down on to the external disk in a directory for that machine, then move on to the next. External tape would work as well, as you described. The key idea is that you probably don't need to back up the OS and applications, you should have all those on original CDs. <p>Fred Wagner<br><a href=mailto:frwagne@ci.long-beach.ca.us>frwagne@ci.long-beach.ca.us</a><br><a href= > </a><br>

 

[Zelandakh]

Kind of on a similar note:<br>
<br>
If you have recentish OSs such as 95/98/NT, stick something big enough and external (Jaz is a good one) and back up datafiles only. If you have no networking you have no email so preferences are no prob. Write a batch file to xcopy *.doc from c:\ to external then *.xls and so on for each of the files required. Any machines that do not play, take a spare HDD, open the case and stick it on a spare IDE channel and do the same trick. Once you have all the data, assemble it on your machine.<br>
<br>
Major downer (and reason for replying) is that if you can back up the entire lot for next to no money in under a week, they will always expect that of you...<br>
<br>
If you say YES it means give me more of a challenge next time!!!

 

[robherc]

Alt-<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<b><i>HOLD EVERYTHING</i></b> I just noticed an ad for a $300 drive that uses 30Gb removeable media; and moves data @ speeds of up to around 10GB/hr....the disks were about @40/ea<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Soon as I get home I'll get the URL for the site of the magazine & zip you an e-mail....I think they have overnight delivery....other than that....I <i>guess</i> you could try an external tape backup device.....but that's <i>really</i> sloooooooooooooooow..... <p>-Robherc<br><a href=mailto:robherc@netzero.net>robherc@netzero.net</a><br><a href= > </a><br>*nix installation & program collector/reseller. Contact me if you think you've got one that I don't

 

[Alt255]

Hmmm, Rob, I wish I'd known of such a device on Monday. The money has been spent. I have the drive (60-70mb/minute on the IDE) but I'm still waiting for the tapes to arrive.<br>
Zel and Fred; excellent ideas on the data-only backups but I had discarded the notion prior to posting this thread. April to December of last year I was assigned the task of running extensive Y2k testing of those systems, performing an extensive inventory of all the hardware and software, installing software installation-blocking software (welcome to the Office of the Departmental Redundancy Department) and comparing the installed software against the existing inventory of setup disks and CDs.<br>
I counted nearly 250 software titles (i.e. Word Perfect 5.1, Autocad 14, etc.) and compared them with about a dozen setup sets. The originals and documentation had disappeared (attrition, theft, who knows).<br>
The best bet appeared to lie in complete system backups with hopes that the company would &quot;dig deep&quot; for OS upgrades, should the need of restoration arise.<br>
<br>
Nothing is easy, but &quot;nothing&quot; surely makes life interesting.

 

[robherc]

Hmmm..(shakes head slowly looking @ ad)....$299 internal IDE or $399 external parallel drive + $99 for a package of 3 30GB disks (90GB) or $198 for 2 pkgs of 30GB disks (180GB...breathing room) = $398 to $597 to complete the whole job with transfer speeds of 732GB/hr and 100x tape backup reliability.....(sheds a tear) <i><b>DARN!</i></b> and I was actually thinking about letting you know about it in early Nov!!! (inserting foot A <i><u>firmly</u></i> into rear orifice B) <p>-Robherc<br><a href=mailto:robherc@netzero.net>robherc@netzero.net</a><br><a href= > </a><br>*nix installation & program collector/reseller. Contact me if you think you've got one that I don't

 

[MasterRacker]

Rob,<br>
<br>
Send me the URL. I can believe the IDE speed, but 10GB/hr through the parallel port seems awfully fast.<br>
<br>
I've got a machine with a 20GB Travan drive that seems to like to give verify errors a lot. I'd love to replace it cheap.

 

[Alt255]

Yeah, me too. It sounds like a good backup alternative for the servers at the corporate office.<br>
And don't worry about the foot -- put on some shoes and keep on truckin'.

 

[robherc]

Hmmm...here's ONE URL: <A HREF="

http://www.globalcomputer.com"

TARGET="_new">

http://www.globalcomputer.com</A><br>

As far as the parallel speed goes....I'm not <i>quite</i> sure on that spec; but I'd guess it probably edges pretty close to the 4-6Mbps throughput limit of a ParPort<br>
Once you get to the website; you're looking for the OnStream 30GB Digital Drive (though they're not being <i>extremely</i> clear as to whether it's a tape direve or a cartridge drive...I'm getting mixed adversitements from multiple magazines there (sorry). <p>-Robherc<br><a href=mailto:robherc@netzero.net>robherc@netzero.net</a><br><a href= > </a><br>*nix installation & program collector/reseller. Contact me if you think you've got one that I don't

 

[robherc]

Just a note.....typing &quot;OnStream&quot; in the search box @ the top left on the <A HREF="

http://www.globalcomputers.com"

TARGET="_new">

http://www.globalcomputers.com</A>

page does very well @ bringing up all of the stuff related to this drive....Oh, and <i>yes</i> it is a tape backup drive of sorts...can use 30GB(15GB before compression) or 50GB(25GB pre-compression) tape cartridges....but it still looks pretty impressive to me; complete with auto-backup software that saves a clone of every file you mess with......snazzy <p>-Robherc<br><a href=mailto:robherc@netzero.net>robherc@netzero.net</a><br><a href= > </a><br>*nix installation & program collector/reseller. Contact me if you think you've got one that I don't

 

[MasterRacker]

Alt,<br>
<br>
Today was the deadline. How'd it go? <p> Jeff<br><a href=mailto: masterracker@hotmail.com> masterracker@hotmail.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>

 

[Alt255]

A lot better than I expected, all considered. 33 systems backed up and only a &quot;little&quot; over budget. The &quot;suits&quot; managed to do a little mental math in the real-world and realized that 1 + 1 &lt;&gt; 11.<br>
The deadline has become vague, the budget flexible. The support has grown beyond my expectations. The users must've been spooked by the vestiges of the Y2k scare. They have been delivering their computers many hours in advance of the schedule, just to make sure they get a backup.<br>
<br>
Many thanks to the Tek-Tippers who offered help. Starting to wipe the sweat from my forehead. <br>

 

[robherc]

Glad to hear the great news.....at this rate they'll <i>never</i> be able to get rid of you.....just think; you represent a knowledge/resourcefullness base that's as big as one would expect from well over a thousand people, all working to solve their biggest problems. (oh wait....you do; all of us too <p>-Robherc<br><a href=mailto:robherc@netzero.net>robherc@netzero.net</a><br><a href= > </a><br>*nix installation & program collector/reseller. Contact me if you think you've got one that I don't

 

[NEFF]

Great work fellows.......<br>
this is the stuff that makes it all worthwhile..<br>
I thank you, they thank you, we all thank you!!!

 

[tonykerr]

use the xcopy command ( xcopy/h/e/k/c c: d: (from the root)<br>
to a secondary ide port, then winzip the data into 650 MB chunkz, upload to a 200$ 4X4X24 speed cd rewriter (cd's are $1.00 per 650 MB (1GB compressed) have one box compressing the data as the other rips the cd, do it for 400$ and you will get a cool nod from the suits

 

[kansaspcdoc]

you can get a 250 mb usb zip drive for $119 possibly cheaper. Get 4 of them and go you could do 4 machines at a time so you'd only have to do 15 machines a piece on the drives you could do 3 a day per drive easy and you would be done.

 

[kansaspcdoc]

Sorry blonde moment... 250 GB drives I typed MB but meant GB drives. I have 3 in service here and they are very dependable and easy to use.