It's alive!

[jetpilot08]

A few specs and pics of my build:
Windoze 7 Ultimate
VmWare 8
MSI z68A-GD65
8 GB of SSkill RAM
2 1TB hard drives (6gbps+64 mb cache=Sweet!)
850 wat Thermaltake P/S

I just remebered I have Acronis True Image...hopefully that will back up my virtual machines if any problem arise. If not that Sync Back proram looks pretty cool I may try that out if the Acronis software doesn't work.






Wondering what you IT guys use for back up software? I am building a server with windows server 2008 R2. I was thinking about going with the Symantec ghost suite but wanted to know if there was anything better.

 

[AtomicPunk]

A lot of factors can go into this, what is the function of the server, what is stored on it, how fast do you need to recover?

I liked Ghost up until Symantec bought them, but have not used it in years.
Symantec Backup Exec has been the business standard, I am deploying a new server using Symantec System Recovery which offers faster recovery. Get your checkbook out if you want either.

You have to ask, "what will downtime cost you...".

 

[jetpilot08]

It's just a server/virtual box to practice on while I get my Microsoft certs. I dont need anything too complex its just a test lab to simulate a decent network and practice backing up and deploying operating systems and software among other things.

 

[element3488]

I use syncback and just copy data that way super easy to setup and works great

 

[SuperJETT]

I use ghettoVCB to backup images of my virtuals and Backup Exec for file level backups, though I don't really care for it. Recently it quit writing to a backup-to-disk NAS device and no matter what I did wouldn't see it as available, so I had to remove it and all backups for that device then set it up from scratch.

 

[Magnum Mike]

For small clients/small businesses/friends I recommend Mozy.
For $5 a month set it and be done with it.
Don't backup the OS, just the data (unless it is a domain controller, etc.)
Restoring a booting OS from backup media is a pain anyways, I usually end up starting from install media when restoring a host.

At my office backupexec to removable 1tb drives in a 4 bay esata enclosure. We can do many jobs in parallel saving to many different folders on the 1tb drives compared when we used tape media only one job could run per tape.


edit: if you are looking at ghost for cloning also look at clonezilla bootable CD for free. You can boot on the CD and save/restore images to/from a network share.

 

[icecoled007]

holy giant cpu fan batman!

What processor you using? Any GPU?

 

[jetpilot08]

Specs:

MSI board
i7 2600 I haven't overclocked it all yet
8 gigs of GSKILL ram going to upgrade soon to 16 maybe more
Two 1 teraybyte hardrives......hoping to get a nas box soon for these and then getting 3 or 4 ssd's
Zalman cooler ...these are awesome fans. Next year I might upgrade to liquid cooling and start playing around with over clocking
Geforce GTX 550 Ti video card

I use this as a virtual machine box while I'm slogging through my Microsoft certs. I run Windoze 7 ultimate as my host OS. Then I run windoze Server 2008 R2, Vista, Xp, and a few Win 7 machines.

Vmware makes this computer run like a Pentium II when I have more than a couple of virtual machines up. I suspect I could use more ram and I think its slow because all of my virtual machines are on one of the terabyte hard drives. I would like set it up so each virtual machine has its own ssd hard drive.

 

[icecoled007]

Why have so many OS's

 

[jetpilot08]

Just a small mock up network to play around with. I'm going to be starting my active directory class next term and I like to use wireshark to analyze the packets buzzing around my fake network. I only really use vista and xp for practicing migrating fake users and data to Windoze 7.

 

[andy49510]

It's just a server/virtual box to practice on while I get my Microsoft certs. I dont need anything too complex its just a test lab to simulate a decent network and practice backing up and deploying operating systems and software among other things.

Which certs are you getting from MS? Just curious. I'm taking my Comptia A+ cert exams soon and I start my class for the Windows 7 certification next month.

 

[jetpilot08]

I'm taking my Windows 7 class now. Then next term I'm taking Microsoft Network design and management and Active directory.

On a side note take your windows 7 very seriously. It is a tough class with lots of material. If you want a head start check out Professor Messor. He has tons of videos on the Windoze 7 test as well as the A+ exam. Also if you buy the Microsoft 70-680 study book make damn sure you get a a "corrected reprint edition". It will say this above the bar code on the back of the book. The first edition was full of errors and there is something like 85 pages of corrections you can download from Microsoft...Save your self the headaches!!

Also get your self a copy of Microsoft server 2008 R2, Windows 7 and either Vmware workstation (pretty spendy but a kick ass program for running virtual machines) or oracle's virtual box which is free. You can get the 180 day trial OS's from Microsoft. You will need Microsoft ultimate or enterprise editions and server 2008 R2 to setup labs. You need hands on labs or this test will be very tough to pass especially when it comes to deploying Win 7. You wont need to know windows server in and out but there will be a few things that you need to know how to set up in the server OS like setting up Active directory and a domain, Branch cache, Direct access, and enterprise deployment.