[SoCoSA/discuss] Windows Server 2003 Backup

[Dave Sisley]

Hey, folks:

I have created a problem for myself.  We have a new Dell server at work 
running Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition and I ordered it with a 
tape drive for backup.  I thought it would be able to use the Travan 20G 
native/40G compressed tapes, except that the drive won't do hardware 
compression and the Backup Utility that ships with the OS won't do 
software compression.

My 'simple' question is:  what's the best way to automate backups so 
when I do large backups, I can compress the data?  Is there an 
inexpensive software solution that someone could recommend, or a 
command-line-like solution that uses native applications?  I'm in new 
territory with Windows here (I'm fairly proficient with Linux...  hmmm: 
cygwin?). 

The data set I'm dealing with is about 25G (currently) and I would do a 
full backup of that once a week, or maybe once every 2 weeks, with 
incrementals in between.  I also need to do System backups monthly or 
so; I'm not sure at the moment how big that is.

Thanks in advance for any useful info!

-dave.

-- 
Dave Sisley
dsisley at sonic.net
roth-sisley.net