I'm looking to backup our client/project files and system files (fonts, music, pictures, etc...). Ideally, I would like to backup all our computers to one single server then backup to tape from there. My problem is that cost is a big factor. As I mentioned before, I thought we could get away with buying a Buffalo Terastation (1TB of storage) but quickly found out that it doesn't work well with Mac. I was thinking about buying a Apple Server but it's too expensive for just to do backups and without getting a RAID setup, I run the risk of disk failure without anykind of protection.
What I would like to do is getting something that has 1TB of storage, acts like a server, and I can hook up a tape backup or smaller external hard drives to offload the back to. So I can take these drives home with me (off-location storage). The Buffalo Terastation would have been perfect but it's not meant to used with the Mac OS (They say it's compatible though).
If I was to run a tape back up system. What would you all recommend? Do I need to buy a whole new computer and stick a tape drive into it? Or can I buy an external drive with USB or Firewire connection and just plug it into my G5? What is your setup like (model numbers and manufacturer's names would be appreciated)?
Currently, we've gone this route and it seems like it's working for us tenatively... (2) Seagate 500GB external harddrives connected individually to each computer. I've decided to try out and use Super Duper backup software. The software is easier to use than Retrospect (by far) but I wouldn't say it's perfect. Still gets a little confusing but I was able to get it to backup regular schedule. It does a straight over copy of the files and doesn't compress them in any way. That's nice if you need to get to the files quick but not good in terms of storage space. My only concern is that we need to offload particular project/client files that we don't use any more but need to keep them on-hand in case the client comes back to us for a new project. We currently store all our files on our drives and back them up to the externals. We need something for long time storage.
I saw that Mac's new OS is coming out with a backup software included. I'm hoping that it's something that we can use for our needs because what is out there now seems to complicated and non-user friendly.
Thanks!