Up to now I was relying on several Planet servers for backup, but having recently lost control of one server I'm looking into a backup strategy that would let me rebuild my sites even if I lost the actual servers.

I was going to get a separate server completely closed other than over RDP and woud move backups by FTP but it's more expensive than I thought, $89+$15 for WinServer. So I shopped around and saw the new EZbackup (ex-Disksynch) and Network (ex-NAS) but they are currently unavailable for purchase so I can't figure out their cost. I looked at the DiskSynch tutorial ans it seems interesting especially with the automation, but I'm not clear on how you regain access to your files in case of a problem ? Network is more like what I had in mind especially since it can apparently be accessed from any Planet server, including a new one if the previous servers go AWOL.

I remember from the EV1 days that an existing server had to be taken offline to set up the backup service, no longer required it seems ? Anyone have experience wit NAS or have a link for a tutorial ?

We have one server that only handles backups for each of our live data servers.

It runs R1Soft's CDP software so our customers can choose to restore from multiple backups.

Our live data servers are scattered throughout The Planet's data centers while the backup storage server resides in H1.

Are you looking for backup/recovery options or fault tolerant options? At bare minimum, I would suggest a Backup and Recovery solution. If the service you provide requires high availability, I would highly suggest using a Fault Tolerance solution in addition to the Backup and Recovery solution. Fault Tolerance solutions are not a replacement for Backup and Recovery options.

A lot of people don't take in account for the importance of both options until it's too late. Many businesses don't think their customers are willing to assume the costs associated with such solutions.

Backup and Recovery:
Reactive -- Backup and Recovery will have certain amount of downtime associated with the recovery portions.

The CDP servers automate alot of the work necessary to maintain the backup/recovery options. It's also very feature rich. Granted the business impact is a bit higher. This also covers many servers.

Disksync offers alot of automation, which is quite nice, but it also removes some of your ability to maintain control as it's a shared service managed by us. This solution is on a per-server basis, and you're unable to access the vault from outside of our network.

The NAS backup solutions offer you the basics. Low cost, but with that there's no automation.

Fault Tolerance:
Proactive -- This helps mitigate some or all of the associated downtime associated with a failure and recovery.

At the single server level, we have RAID, which will mitigate a lot of the downtime associated with drive failure and the subsequent recovery process.

At the next level up, the service level, we have clustering(and load balancing). This would allow for a total failure or expected maintenance/upgrade of a server without taking a service offline. This option would be best for high availability requirements. Physical diversity is important in making this option effective.

Also worth noting is the Disksync doesn't offer a bare metal restore, whereas CDP does.

CDP for the win!