Can anybody recommend some software for backing up our database, quotes, excel files and accounts and stuff, we have been using windows own but i want some thing that could automate itself.

How much do you want to spend? There are some excellent and secure enterprise solutions but they cost, but then again, how much is your entire customer database worth?

I use Acronis Trueimage www.acronis.com which creates an image of your hard drive - better than a simple backup programme.

If the hard drive goes belly-up or you have a serious crash you can recover everything onto a new hard drive (or re-formatted old drive) and continue as though nothing had happened - no need to re-install programmes and settings!

Always worth re-instaling everything from time to time anyway, Windows just chokes itself slowly over time.

How much do you want to spend? There are some excellent and secure enterprise solutions but they cost, but then again, how much is your entire customer database worth?

What ever it costs i dont thnig thats the most important thing here, if i lost just our database / Quotes then i might as well give up, just done a backup today and its filled a blank DVD so its up to 8gig, looking for some thing that will compress aswell.

Got norton ghost, will have to explore the making a image of the hard drive as rjbsec mentioned.

There are 2 main pieces of archiving software I have used in the past, ArcServ and Veritas. I would recommend ArcServ for its easy user interface.

I'll just go and dig out some links...... Done.

Edited December 20, 200520 yr by Lurch

What ever it costs i dont thnig thats the most important thing here, if i lost just our database / Quotes then i might as well give up, just done a backup today and its filled a blank DVD so its up to 8gig, looking for some thing that will compress aswell.

Got norton ghost, will have to explore the making a image of the hard drive as rjbsec mentioned.

Ghost will do it okay - Trueimage works in Windows rather than DOS so is a bit more user friendly.

When things go wrong you need a quick reliable solution to prevent panic - a disk image provides just that.

We use Backupexec, now owend by Norton (Symantec). All backup Programs tend to be a console front end for the built in Windows backup.

We use USB Internal HP DDS3 and 4 Drives, Which only used to be SCSI, but now usb 2 is out they make the usb2 ones.

Up to 20 GIG uncompressed and 40 Compressed, depending on the drive.

Failing that Nero With Dual Layered DVDs (DVD9) or 2 x Standard (DVD5)

Dean

Forgot to add about the automation, you can use windows Scheduled tasks to do what you want. I have Backup Scripts (Batch files) if you need any help.

Forgot to add about the automation, you can use windows Scheduled tasks to do what you want. I have Backup Scripts (Batch files)

Yeah, that's my solution to it all (currently being revamped though). I just have scheduled tasks and batch files to copy files from drives to other drives on the network. Bit like a huge RAID array, but not quite so well organised!

An alternative way of making sure you don't lose your data is to copy everything onto a 40gb mp3 player..... It is really just a portable hard drive......... and 40 gb should be enough to store all your data..... It is also an easy way of transferring the data between computers in different locations

Might as well buy the maxtor External USB2 Hard drive, probably get 2 or 3 for redundancy and take them off site or stick em in a safe