3 seperate servers need just /home and /mysql directories backed up weekly/ or overwrite daily if thats possible. PLease suggest the best low cost , easy setup where I can access 1 single file or move an entire site back on a server just in case or anytime I need to and move to another server.

Currently Im server to server manually or to 2nd h/d on each box. your help is very welcomed.

http://forums.theplanet.com/index.php?showtopic=60521

I guess I should put more information. I currently have daily backups running for html files and all mysql dbs. What I need now is , a new server that will acts as my dump ground for 2 or 3 servers (40 or less gigs each) of daily html and mysql. In short im asking for suggestions on the type of hardware and what software to put in place to do auto backups of the /home directory from 3 server different servers and have it stored wherever I want on a different server.

Like if I only need 40 gigs from 3 other servers should I just buy a 300 gig hardrive and slap it in a dual xeon 3060 and just install some auto backup software from 3 machines to the new one? thoughts?

I just need a cheap as possible hardware (then auto backup software) solution to off-production server backup of 40 gigs html daily.

btw thanks Catalyst, your script is great for my boxes to locally store dbs I use them often.

If you noticed, one of those scripts will do a remote MySQL backup via Dumps.

Another one you might wanna check out is rdiff-backup (http://dag.wieers.com/packages/rdiff-backup) ... Install it on all of them ... Setup some SSH authorized keys on the receiving server (we'll call it server4, and there's a HOWTO around for that)... Create the /backup/fs directory, then create a directory under than with the server names (i.e. server1, server2, server3). Then create /usr/local/sbin/backup.sh on each one you wanna backup:
Change "server1" to server2 & server3 as you go ... and, of course, set server4 to be wherever you're backing up to.
Then on the server that's storing the backups, create this executable in /etc/cron.daily:
That'll clean up any files older than 14 Days.

And there you go.

Maybe you do it all on server3 ... whatever ... the point is, you can store remote backups anywhere. You could even round robin them for insane redundancy ... server1 -> server2, server2 -> server3, server3 -> server1.

cheapest method would be , just order planet NAS backup mount and rsync the files over to it. I guess it cost around 60$ for 120G per month.

Versus taking 15 or 20 minutes and uses what he already has with no additional charges ... ? ;-)

It all kinda depends on what "off-production server" means to ramstar. If he means "I want backups to be stored off of the backed up server," you're right, but if he means "All three of my servers are production servers and I want backups to be stored somewhere else," a NAS or an additional server might be in the cards.

40 GB of html moving to another server would bump up bandwidth usage (if I'm not mistaken), so it would be important to factor that into which option is best.

lol, i was kinda thinking that, but just didn't feel it was my place to say it.

I actually went a whole different route , i took advantage of the unmetered server special with more processors then i have teeth. I put all the nameservers from all the servers onto the new box and used the cpanel account merge tool to pull all the sites over and closed the old servers. Now i just do hourly backups of mysql and /home using the scripts that catalyst rocked me!

thanks!

hmm.... smart!