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I've never set up windows backups before (I know, I know) and my friend wants me to set up a backup server for him - I have a AM3 setup and sempron that I'll be appropriating for this, and throwing Linux on there because windows licenses are expensive

The problem is he uses Home Premium which for some phenominally stupid reason doesn't support network backups. What I'm thinking is have Windows backup utility do its backup to disk (weekly, monthly, whatever), then having a scheduled task robocopy it to the server - I can write a script that will prune all old backups on the linux box.

Is there a better / easier / more elegant way to do this? Or potentially a free backup solution that allows me to use the network?

The problem is he uses Home Premium which for some phenomenally stupid reason doesn't support network backups

Agree with that!

I've had a similar issue and I found this workaround which looks pretty easy and elegant. I haven't tried it it but will be happy to report back when I do.
You basically create a virtual hard disk drive on the network drive by going to Computer -> Manage ->Disk Management. Now you need to create VHD by browsing to Network share\folder\mapped drive and following the prompts to set up the vhd as a simple volume and assign it a drive letter. Next- initialize the drive.
You will be prompted if you want to open to view files, speed up windows using readyboost, or Use this Drive to Back Up Windows - choose the last option and then Windows Backup starts.
Hope this works
Rona

if there is a little bit of a budget on this build I'd recommend going with windows home server 2011 its $50 for the software and does automatic backups over the network. Plus it gives you a platform for centralized anti virus, file sharing, media streaming and secure remote web access. Its a great product for $50

EV42TMAN wrote:

if there is a little bit of a budget on this build I'd recommend going with windows home server 2011 its $50 for the software and does automatic backups over the network. Plus it gives you a platform for centralized anti virus, file sharing, media streaming and secure remote web access. Its a great product for $50

But plan on additional hardware/software for some sort of RAID/pseudo-RAID if you do, since WHS2011 no longer provides that. I had to pay 50$ to get FlexRAID, but I'm happier with that because it's multi-OS. Right now I have it running under Windows Server 2008 R2, but I plan to switch that server out with Linux as soon as I have time.

I like your current proposal. KISS.

Pika's initial plan has maximum flexibility/growth.

Ronarosen's plan has the smallest number of moving parts/ most likely to work without adjustment/tinkering.

Forge wrote:

EV42TMAN wrote:

if there is a little bit of a budget on this build I'd recommend going with windows home server 2011 its $50 for the software and does automatic backups over the network. Plus it gives you a platform for centralized anti virus, file sharing, media streaming and secure remote web access. Its a great product for $50

But plan on additional hardware/software for some sort of RAID/pseudo-RAID if you do, since WHS2011 no longer provides that. I had to pay 50$ to get FlexRAID, but I'm happier with that because it's multi-OS. Right now I have it running under Windows Server 2008 R2, but I plan to switch that server out with Linux as soon as I have time.

Sorry to hi-jack the thread, but did you try dynamic volumes? Performance is actually pretty decent, even though it is purely software-pseduo-RAID.

Ryhadar wrote:

Forge wrote:

EV42TMAN wrote:

if there is a little bit of a budget on this build I'd recommend going with windows home server 2011 its $50 for the software and does automatic backups over the network. Plus it gives you a platform for centralized anti virus, file sharing, media streaming and secure remote web access. Its a great product for $50

But plan on additional hardware/software for some sort of RAID/pseudo-RAID if you do, since WHS2011 no longer provides that. I had to pay 50$ to get FlexRAID, but I'm happier with that because it's multi-OS. Right now I have it running under Windows Server 2008 R2, but I plan to switch that server out with Linux as soon as I have time.

Sorry to hi-jack the thread, but did you try dynamic volumes? Performance is actually pretty decent, even though it is purely software-pseduo-RAID.

Good point, I hadn't. I've had some bad experiences in the past, attempting to recover degraded Windows RAID5 volumes. I went with FlexRAID because degraded array recovery has worked very well there. It looks like WHS 2011, being a closer relative to SBS2011 than WHS v1 was, has a fully functional Windows software RAID subsystem. For my purposes, having easier drive recovery was more important than 50$, but YMMV.