backup advice needed

[Neuronal Nerd]

Hi, I'm new to serving. I just recently started running Filemaker 10 Server on a dedicated Mac Pro with Mac OS 10.5.6. I stay logged out of the Mac Pro while filemaker server runs. I currently use the preset daily back up script to back up my solution locally.

I'm curious as to some software and hardware options for backing up the whole drive on that Mac Pro to a second internal drive and an external drive for the sake of redundancy. What backup softwares would work in the background if I were not logged in? Could I just use the RAID feature built in to the Mac OS X and it will keep a copy of the drive? Is there a different or better solution for backing up to an external drive? Would I need to shut down my FM server to run them?

All advice is appreciated. Thanks

Edited January 28, 2009 by Guest

[mr_vodka]

You should run the backups NOT on the entire drive while FMS is running. Run the backups on the backed up files. IOW, take the files in your backups folder and copy those out to another drive.

As for live drive redundancy, you will want to go with a hardware RAID configuration.

[Neuronal Nerd]

That is helpful...thanks. As far as the hardware RAID configuration, is that the same as just putting the second drive in the tower and just enabling that feature from the disk utility? Any recommendations on the best way to back backup my backup files to an external drive on a schedule with the user logged out?

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Take a look at the backups paper on Wim Decorte's website at Connecting Data.

Steven

[cbum]

I looked and did not find anything useful - do you have a more specific link?

thanks

[Steven H. Blackwell]

BackUps White Paper from the Connecting Data web site.

Steven