Ideas for home backup

[nodle]

Ok i have a few questions and want to see what you guys recommend as my best backup solution. Currently i have a machine set up. Amd X2 1gig of memory and just running XP pro. I have a raid card in it currently running raid 3. I have 3x 500gig drive so that if one fails i am still ok. I also have a few other larger drives in there that i use by themselves. I am currently running out of room, and i need a backup of around 1 terrabyte with redundancy. I currently just turn it on to do incremental backups to it. But i would like to have something that i could leave running 24/7 that both my and my wife's machines could pull data from etc. I keep hearing about windows home server and i was wondering how the drive portion works? Does it kinda work like a drobo where it just spans the data? Then if on drive fails i just shut down and replace the drive? What would be my best way going about this? Buy a hpEX470 or something? Or just buy the OS and install on my current computer? For some wierd reason i always feel weird about leaving it on 24/7. We are both running XP pro. Also my wife uses Itunes. If i would transfer music on the WHS could she stream the music from the server and also add music to her ipod from it? Or would the music have to be stored locally to transfer? Thanks guys for any help or input about the best soultion.

 

[ghostee]

Also my wife uses Itunes. If i would transfer music on the WHS could she stream the music from the server and also add music to her ipod from it? Or would the music have to be stored locally to transfer?

You can configure her iTunes library to store it's music on the server. However, if the server is ever unreachable and she tries to add music, it will revert to the local harddrive.

An alternative way is you can store both the music and the iTunes library file on the server. That ensures that you'll never accidently revert to a local music folder (unless you chose to).

 

[nodle]

You can configure her iTunes library to store it's music on the server. However, if the server is ever unreachable and she tries to add music, it will revert to the local harddrive.

An alternative way is you can store both the music and the iTunes library file on the server. That ensures that you'll never accidently revert to a local music folder (unless you chose to).

Yes i plan to store the entire music library on the server, that way she can only just pull from it. I don't want to give her rights to delete anything by accident. I will be the one adding new music to it.

 

[ghostee]

Yes i plan to store the entire music library on the server, that way she can only just pull from it. I don't want to give her rights to delete anything by accident. I will be the one adding new music to it.

If you add music to the server, which is not in her iTunes library, you can stream it using Firefly. You run Firefly on the server and it makes available the music via an iTunes share, which she can listen to. iTunes doesn't let you add music to your iPod from a share though, she'd have to add the files to her library to do that.