I'm looking for some input on backing up data on our servers. We are running a pair of Novell servers that primarily act as file servers. When I look at our data, I'm not concerned about the Network infrastructure itself and backing up of the NDS, user profiles, trustee assignments, etc. The way I look at it, I can always recreate these if I have a catostrophic event. We only have 130 users so it's not that difficult to recreate this setup. So my thought is to just focus on backing up the datafiles from these servers. This is the material that I need to ensure never gets lost as it can not easily be recreated.
In order to do this, I was considering putting a data storage device at my house and then backing up the servers from our office to a data storage appliance at my home. I could use a software solution to maintain synchronization of the data. Alternatively, I could look at backing up the data to a cloud based solution. Am I looking at this entirely wrong? I've used Backup Exec in the past with tapes and that's a pain. Currently we're using a Barracuda backup appliance but integration with Novell is lacking. I also need to get this data backed up off site. Therefore, my proposal may work. Please comment.
Edit - I'm not trying to create a meaningless dialogue here. I'm really trying to understand why my thinking is flawed. In my situation I'm running Raid 5 data storage on multiple servers. Our primary server is mirrored to another server for redundancy in another area of our building. The only thing that could really cause us to lose our data is a catastrophic event. I gauge the likelihood of this happening as very low but yes, it could happen. Therefore, I agree, backups are important and necessary. However, help me understand why just storing the actual data offsite and not all the network structure detail is flawed. I hope this is more constructive...