Actually, Dan, sorry for my remark. What you have to do is revisit what you are saving and put in exclude.dirs for all directories that contain software that can be rebuilt from a common desktop image (hard drive replacment). Have your users save their documents in specific folders and only back them up. Then they just have to customize their desktop configure their node name in the dsm.opt and restore the stuff that is backed up.
This is the trade-off. The other approach is the backupset that is a CD sent to them and incremental restore from that point forward. Paul D. Seay, Jr. Technical Specialist Naptheon, INC 757-688-8180 -----Original Message----- From: Dan Foster [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 11:25 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Keeping an handle on client systems' large drives I've always been curious about something. How do you keep an handle on the fact that commodity PC storage is growing at a far faster rate than tape capacity/system is? For example, if I had a small LAN of about 300 PCs -- let's say, an academic or corporate departmental LAN environment... each has at least a 40 GB HD, and probably a fair amount of apps and files on them. In the stores, I see drives up to 160 GB, with even larger ones on the way! So let's say, an average of 25 GB utilization per system... a single full backup would be about 7.5 TB, which is quite a few tapes ;) Not everybody is using LTO or higher capacity. So do those sites rely purely on the incrementals to save you? Or some site specific policy such as tailoring backups to exclude (let's say) C:\Program Files, or some such...? Just wondering. Not every site is lucky enough to be able to convince the beancounters the merits of having a backup system that keeps up with the needs of the end users, even if it means one has to explain doomsday predictions on the business bottom line -- they invariably hear that then say "Oh, pshaw, you're just exaggerating because you want money...". It sucks to be the one that's right ;) And the ones who warns well before a nasty event occurs may also be the first one to be fired out of spite after something happens and gets the blame for not having prevented it. -Dan Foster IP Systems Engineering (IPSE) Global Crossing Telecommunications