Multi-OS Backup Solutions

[Dhelsdon]

Hello Everyone,

I am looking for some guidance as far as a complete backup system for my home network, I prefer a server based backup solution that will support multiple operating systems (Mac, Windows)

After some searching but haven't really had anything jump out at me. All of the ones I am familiar with are strictly for windows and I don't want to have to worry about managing two separate backup systems in my home network.

If you can recommend some software that meets most of these things, please let me know. Any advice is also appreciated!!

 

[wrldwzrd89]

The biggest problem with a cross-platform backup solution (and most likely reason why you haven't found anything yet) is file system format incompatibilities. However, there is a neat workaround you can use. If you have a computer lying around (Mac or non-Mac, doesn't matter - but if it's a Mac it needs to be Intel-based) you can install Linux on, it's not hard to set up a backup server. Here's the catch though - files to be backed up have to be packaged in a format that won't cause their metadata to get trashed, so they'll restore properly later. I recommend some sort of compressed archive - a disk image works beautifully for Macs, and 7-Zip gets the job done on Windows.

 

[Dhelsdon]

Hmm.. Automation is very appealing to me right now, I was thinking something along the lines of time machine on a server with some other software for my windows pc's to handle those backups. I don't really like the idea of having to manually back them up every x amount of days.