[Pc_Support] RE: Backup software suggestions (Windows, Cygwin or Linux)

[Bryan J. Smith]

From:  Damien McKenna 
> Programs I'm looking at include NTBackup, Genie Backup 6 Home and Backup MyPC. 
> NTBackup lacks a lot of features in comparison to the other two but is free. 
> One concern I have is that they use a standard backup format, 
> right now I'm not sure what format any of them use,
> but I'd ideally like to be able to access the data from other tools if possible
> (e.g. boot up Ubuntu and do some queries on it). 

Well, Microsoft's Backup uses an aged Backup Exec format, but most Backup Exec programs can read it.
It is just "crippled" with file number/index limitations (that I found out about much later).
I've found many smaller departments (even in large corporations) have  stuck with Backup Exec, even for UNIX platforms.

I can't attest to the format of the other products mentioned.

Also don't forget that NT5+ comes with "pax" (POSIX/SUS replacement for cpio/tar),
although I don't know how capable the NT version is for backing up NT ACL/SID info.
But that shouldn't matter of you're running on FAT32.

Also don't forget that rsync to a Linux box is always an option too.