[geeks] Backup software (yeah, yeah, I know)

[Sheldon T. Hall]

Quoth Phil Stracchino
> Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 4:02 PM
> To: The Geeks List
> Subject: Re: [geeks] Backup software (yeah, yeah, I know)
> 
> Sheldon T. Hall wrote:
> > Back in the CP/M days, I wrote a program that backed up 
> > hard-drive data to
> > multiple [floppy] disks, grouping the files by size in such 
> > a way as to fill
> > the disks and just copying the files.  I'd love to have 
> > something like that
> > now.  Ideally, you'd give it a list of directories; it 
> > would then (a)
> > assemble the files from those directories in a way that 
> > efficiently used the
> > space on the DVDs, (b) make ISOs or whatever, and (c) burn the DVDs,
> > prompting you to load the burner, etc.
> > 
> > Does something like that exist?  If not, anyone want to go 
> > into the software business?
> 
> You know, you could do this with Bacula by backing up to disk volumes
> set for a maximum size of 4.7GB, then burning the volumes to DVD.

I know nowt about Bacula, but looking at the "Supported Operating Systems"
page at http://www.bacula.org/en/dev-manual/Supported_Operating_Systems.html
makes it sound a bit complex for backing up one machine to a local DVD
burner.  It seems to be some sort of client-server thing.

The page says ...

# Windows (Win98/Me, WinNT/2K/XP, Vista) Client (File daemon) binaries.
# The Windows servers (Director and Storage daemon) are available in the
binary Client installer. The are reported to work in many cases. However
they are NOT supported.

It looks like it wants a server, although I suppose one could either trick
it into using localhost as a server, or each of the two laptops could be the
other's server.  Not to mention the "they are NOT supported" bit's failure
to inspire confidence.

However, I'll look into it.

I'm open to other suggestions, too!

-Shel