What type of backup? 1

[suprtiger]

Okay, completely new users to Microsoft server systems. I am looking for ideas on what to use to for a backup of the system. The company that I work for however has a very limited budget. However, it was able to put on line 4 servers running server 2008 on 3 and server 2003 on 1. I need to make a snapshot of each server periodically and store them on site and take a snapshot off site. The business manager is telling me that funds will be extremely tight and I do have to watch the budget, so I am stumped as to what to start looking for on these large systems that I have not worked with before. I have used tape backup on the systems that I migrated from and selectively backed up the parts that I wanted.
Thanks in advance and sorry for being somewhat vague in my description.
BTW: The 3 server 2008 have 2 140 + gb hard drives and the server 2003 server has 5 140+ gb hard drives.

 

[porkchopexpress]

We backup several servers here using the built in windows backup, if you're really strapped for cash you could buy some external USB hard drives and use windows backup to backup to files.

You could also buy a NAS box for your on site storage and use external drives for off site.

http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=270051&Sku=131693

It's difficult to narrow down it really depends on your budget.

 

[porkchopexpress]

Some still favour tape for offsite storage, we tend to perform disk to disk to tape for some offsite storage.

http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=163726&Sku=94395

 

[suprtiger]

Thanks, I have looked at the Server built in backup option and it does look like one way to go. USB drives are backing up the data on that is on the critical drives at this time, but Active dirrectory, Domain controller, etc. are not being backed up yet.
We have looked also looked at NAS devices, tape also.
Too many choices for a very strapped budget.
Again thanks for the input.