I would be concerned that that data volume involved in backing up the 
drive might swamp the network and render it unusable for anything else while 
the backup is running.  It may be that you can have the last one out at 
night launch the backup, or have it autostart at 10pm or mignight or 
whatever....
  .... as long as it finishes before people want to start work the next day. 
  USB 2.0 is rated at 480 Mbps, and I don't know how close to that you can 
actually get.  Your ethernet through the LinkSys (Do NOT run the backup 
through the hub!) is probably nominally 100 Mbps; with Ethernet, you'll be 
doing very well to actually see more than 60% of that.
  So if you could get the USB solution to work, it's potentially up to 8 
times faster than you can expect over the LAN.  (I'm kind of assuming that 
if the LinkSys *and* the Buffalo did gigabit Ethernet, you'd have said.)

  [One of my favorite parables, when I was a programmer, ended with the 
punchline "If it doesn't have to work, we can make it as fast as you like!"  
But in your case, as usual, it turns out that it has to work.]

David Gillett


On 18 Apr 2007 at 9:31, Will Stephenson wrote:

Date sent:      	Wed, 18 Apr 2007 09:31:28 -0400
Send reply to:  	Personal Computer Hardware discussion List
             	<[log in to unmask]>
From:           	Will Stephenson <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:        	[PCBUILD] Network drives
To:             	[log in to unmask]

> Hello all!
> 
> I have a client with a peer-to-peer Windows XP network. A year or so ago, we
> got a Buffalo LinkStation network drive to host their business files for all
> users (especially the data file for GoldMine, which requires a mapped drive
> designation to work correctly). We also bought a Western Digital external
> hard drive that connects directly to the Buffalo via USB and acts as a
> backup for the Buffalo. Everything is connected through a 4-port Linksys
> router (internet is through Verizon DSL through the router) and a hub off
> the router. 
> 
> The setup works reasonably well except for the backup. After multiple
> configuration changes and phone conversations with Buffalo, I cannot get the
> backup to work consistently. One example: if you manually start the backup
> (through software installed by Buffalo on a desktop), it refuses to ever
> end, as the process never actually stops unless you turn off the Buffalo and
> the WD drive. Setting the Buffalo to do automatic backups most times results
> in a failed backup. (If anyone has any suggestions about this, I'd be very
> grateful.)
> 
> The client is tired of messing around with this setup, so I came up with the
> idea of getting another network drive, attaching it directly to the network,
> and doing backups with a real backup program. And finally the question(s):
> is this a reasonable concept and, if so, what backup program would you use?
> Would you have any suggestions as to possible pitfalls or gotchas?
> 
> Thank you for your time and thoughts about all this. 
> 
> Will Stephenson
> Acadia Technologies Inc. 
> mailto:[log in to unmask]
> 
>  - Ideologies are ways of organizing large swaths of life and experience
> under a set of shared but unexamined assumptions -
> 
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