I'm looking for input on backups for my office.

I currently have a 200gb Maxtor one-touch external HD connected by USB 2 and use the included software, Dantz Retrospect Express.  The software is getting "flakey" (get what you pay for) and I want to purchase better backup software.  Years ago I used a tape backup, and don't want to do that again.

We have a peer to peer network with 4 machines: 2 Dells and 1 Sony Vaio laptop all running XP Home, and 1 I built (with help from these lists) running Win 2K.  All operating systems are up to date with the latest from MS.

All data is stored on my Dell.  Currently I do a complete backup "almost" weekly and incremental backups daily.  I unplug the drive and it take home at night.  O/S, programs and data use about 110gb of the 160gb hard drive in my machine.

Programs are mainly several brands of accounting and related software, tax program, MS Office, on-line research service, time & billing.  I am also storing more documents as PDF files.

After much reading (and questions remaining), my preliminary conclusions are: I'd like to have a total of 3 or 4 external HDs.  Prices are dropping-I saw a Western Digital 500gb for $99 in last weekend's paper.  I would do a complete backup weekly and incrementals daily, then rotate to a different HD and follow the same procedure the next week.  After 3 or 4 weeks I would "re-use" the 1st HD, deleting the previous backups on that drive.  I suppose the HDs should be replaced every few years, or if there is indication of a physical problem with drive.

I've read reviews about backup software, and Genie Backup Magic sounds impressive.  I've read enough on this list to know many recommend making an image of the drive, I think primarily for restoring the operating system in the event of a crash or virus.  But, I've also read that imaging is not the best option for data backup.  Plus, during tax season, we get daily or more frequent updates to the tax software.

My goals are to have reliable backups of my data, and to be able to recover from physical disaster (fire, weather) or system/hardware meltdown in minimal time, meaning as soon as I could get a new computer, install the disaster recovery CD and restore the image, plug in the external HD and restore everything on it.

Am I headed in the right dirction?  As always, thanks for the input of this great group.

Jeff Long

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