Backing up several Windows machines to a Linux server

[Rodolfo J. Paiz]

Hi:

I am faced with what *must* be a very common task: to make backups of
user files on several Windows machines to the hard disk of a Linux
server. So far I've only been responsible for backing up the servers,
and rsync/rsnapshot plus mondo do a beautiful job of that.

However, I am finding it a little difficult to find software that does
this well. I do prefer to support open-source if at all possible, and I
do prefer zero-cost as this is a small office; but I am able and willing
to pay for software as long as the cost is reasonable.

Here's what I've done so far:

	1. Amanda (http://www.amanda.org) only seems to do backups to tape,
yuck! I definitely want to back up to a hard drive: much faster and much
cheaper, and I can then replicate the data store and take it home on my
notebook. :-) At most we will have 10GB or 20GB of backups, not
terabytes or anything huge.

	2. Given that the clients are Windows and I need to automate backups
(else they'll never get done), I don't see how I can use rsync and/or
similar tools since they don't run on that OS. It seems to me that I
need some sort of a client app on Windows that will push the backups to
the server. Happy to be corrected if wrong, of course.

	3. Bacula (http://www.bacula.org) *looks* pretty complete, but it also
looks pretty confusing and complex to set up. It also speaks of
difficulties backing up Windows clients. Not very attractive at first
sight... does anyone know if it gets easier/nicer later?

	4. Arkeia (http://www.arkeia.com) seems to do the trick. Clients for a
lot of operating systems, server runs on Linux, even has plug-ins for
backing up LDAP, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and others. Waiting for a price
quote from them now, hopefully it will be affordable.

Can I get some help/recommendations here? Any five-star products I've
missed? Especially any really good, pretty cheap ones?

Cheers,

-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz <rpaiz at simpaticus.com>