[bigred875]

I never really worried about this stuff because i mostly used my work laptop and just screwed around on my home pc...but now i am starting to use the home pc for more important things and want to make sure i am protected.

I'm a complete idiot when it comes to this stuff and would rather here one of your opinions then read 25 articles telling me their biased opinions....

[DBConz]

rich, i could probably help. what are you looking for as far as data size and cost?

[ZX-12R]

On your wireless router, make sure you have encryption turned on and limit access by MAC address.

An inexpensive way to back up your data is to get a USB or Firewire external hard drive. Every couple of days or so plug it in and move your important material there.

Since drives are cheap, you could also run a RAID 1 setup which would mirror all your data on a second drive so if one fails you don't lose any info.

[bigred875]

jim, ryan not rich...i am quoting richw in my sig lol as for size and cost...my HD is 320gb i think...cost? best bang for buck

12r - i'll need to go back into my router settings...it's been a long time since i installed it and it was on another pc...any tips on doing this with a linksys...i imagine i need to download a utility somewhere or can i telnet in and do that via command line?

i was thinking an external hd setup forr RAID 1 would be my best bet since dirves are cheap...and recommendation? also, best practices on setting it up for RAID 1? i can do it no problem on an EMC symmetrix, clariion, HDS and shark...never did it on a pc

[DBConz]

ok, by bad. ryan...
how much data are you looking to back up. i would do a RAID5 setup, which is fast, inexpensive, and more reliable than an external drive on USB or firewire.

do you have wireless, or looking for a whole new setup?

[bigred875]

wouldnt i need 5 drives to set up RAID 5? anyways..i'm listening

i have a wireless network setup now...basically wide open

[xxdcmast]

Definitely start by securing the wireless network. MAC address filtering is the best but kind of a pain if your going to be having outside computer i.e. friends/family trying to connect.

On my network at home I have WPA encryption, non-broadcasting SSID, and MAC address filtering. I feel pretty safe with this setup.

As far as the data security/backup it really depends on how expensive you want to get. You could do the cheap 80 dollar external USB HD, RAID1, RAID5, or if you really wanted get a used tape drive off ebay and do backups to tape using windows backup. Kinda overkill but depending on how important your information is to you it may be a possibility.

[DBConz]

ok, i agree with what these other guys are saying, but dont want to start listing off letters if it's over your head. RAID5 needs a minimum of 3 identical hard drives. the more you use, the faster and more space you get. price and how many drives you can fit into a case will be your factor. for instance, i bought four 500gb drives for $300, and a RAID5 card for my server that ran me $150. one of the drives goes to error checking fo RAID, so i have 1.5tb of space for $450.
what are you looking for as far as networking? looking for a big wireless network? are you looking for remote access to your files and/or computer?

[DBConz]

and personally, i would skip the tape backups for now. RAID5 is a better way to start for file security & peace of mind

[VinceF2]

Originally Posted by bigred875

...any tips on doing this with a linksys...i imagine i need to download a utility somewhere or can i telnet in and do that via command line?

on a machine that is connected via a cable open internet explorer and type 192.168.1.1

that will get you into the router... if you never changed the username and password the username should be blank and the password should be admin.

[DBConz]

linksys has a lot of firmware updates too, since they cant seem to get the daylight savings changes correct in their routers. 90% of the people dont care if their router is off by an hour, but people like me that have time and day of week restrictions on the router need the time to be correct.
the first thing i would recommend on the linksys (besides the obvious of changing your password), is change your subnet to something other than 192.168.1.x. the 10.x.x.x subnets are popular, and that's what i have switched to at home. i know the linksys routers pretty well, and even have messed with some of the open source firmware. let me know if i can be of any help.

[schleppy]

I have a firewall built into my wireless router that is totally locked down (port wise). MAC filtering is really easy to bypass, and makes things more of a pain for you than anyone else, I wouldn't bother. Use the strongest WPA encryption you can, or simply plug in to the wired network if you want to be more secure.

For backup I would build a freenas machine (FreeNAS: The Free NAS Server - Home). I have one at home and built one for my company and they rock. Easy to setup and use, and rock solid.

If you need any help with any of this stuff PM me and I'd be glad to assist.

[DBConz]

Originally Posted by schleppy

For backup I would build a freenas machine (FreeNAS: The Free NAS Server - Home). I have one at home and built one for my company and they rock. Easy to setup and use, and rock solid.

If you need any help with any of this stuff PM me and I'd be glad to assist.

i built 2 of them at work. i was getting there if he went with a RAID5 setup.
i got two FreeNas systems running on old Gateway PII machines with 64k RAM. F'in sweet OS that only needs 20MB of space to run, and can run off a USB stick (if your motherboard supports it).

a really nice setup would be to get a USB 2.0 PCI card with an internal USB port for your computer. get a 128k USB memory stick & install FreeNAS on that. now all the HDD bays are available for your RAID5

[schleppy]

Originally Posted by DBConz

a really nice setup would be to get a USB 2.0 PCI card with an internal USB port for your computer. get a 128k USB memory stick & install FreeNAS on that. now all the HDD bays are available for your RAID5

I built an AMD Sempron setup (CHEAP) and I did just that. It boots pretty quick, and all the SATA ports are free for drives. I'm not going to bother with RAID at this point, since I feel it's overkill for what I do. I have a medley of drives in there now, but will soon have two 500g drives in there. One I'll work off of, and I'll have it back itself up to the other one nightly using the built in RSYNC. Ghetto raid if you will

[LuvDog]

LOL... you work for one of the largest companies in the world that pioneers data integrity, storage and backup solutions.

I just had to bust on you.

[bigred875]

Originally Posted by VinceF2

on a machine that is connected via a cable open internet explorer and type 192.168.1.1

that will get you into the router... if you never changed the username and password the username should be blank and the password should be admin.

[bigred875]

Originally Posted by DBConz

ok, i agree with what these other guys are saying, but dont want to start listing off letters if it's over your head. RAID5 needs a minimum of 3 identical hard drives. the more you use, the faster and more space you get. price and how many drives you can fit into a case will be your factor. for instance, i bought four 500gb drives for $300, and a RAID5 card for my server that ran me $150. one of the drives goes to error checking fo RAID, so i have 1.5tb of space for $450.
what are you looking for as far as networking? looking for a big wireless network? are you looking for remote access to your files and/or computer?

uh...i think thats a little over kill for what i need right now. If i get a server class machine i'd probably go that route. I'm sure RAID 1 with 2 350gb drives is plenty.... I'm pretty sure i have an open slot in my tower...can i just pop it in there and use some microsoft utility to mirror my c:\?

[bigred875]

Originally Posted by LuvDog

LOL... you work for one of the largest companies in the world that pioneers data integrity, storage and backup solutions.

I just had to bust on you.

lol i could implement a virtual SAN? anyone got a mill i can borrow?

[DBConz]

you use mirror RAID and you wont be adding any memory, just adding redundancy. you do the other RAID, and all your data will be lost if one of the drives goes bad. if you're looking to do backups, i would do RAID5 since you only need 3 drives

[DBConz]

Originally Posted by bigred875

lol i could implement a virtual SAN? anyone got a mill i can borrow?

i have 2 rack mount dual PIII servers with Fedora collecting dust

[bigred875]

Originally Posted by DBConz

you use mirror RAID and you wont be adding any memory, just adding redundancy. you do the other RAID, and all your data will be lost if one of the drives goes bad. if you're looking to do backups, i would do RAID5 since you only need 3 drives

i'm looking for data protection

[DBConz]

depending on how much space you want, either mirror or RAID5. depends if you can fit 2 or 3 hard drives

[xxdcmast]

Originally Posted by bigred875

uh...i think thats a little over kill for what i need right now. If i get a server class machine i'd probably go that route. I'm sure RAID 1 with 2 350gb drives is plenty.... I'm pretty sure i have an open slot in my tower...can i just pop it in there and use some microsoft utility to mirror my c:\?

In the past I have used robocopy from microsoft to do this it was pretty easy to learn and worked well. Lots of switches let you specify exactly how you want the file copies done

Download details: Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools

Of course if you go for mirror raid that is all handled automatically for you.

[bigred875]

automatically handled for me sounds good...sign me up for that one

[DBConz]

funny i have the admin pack, and never messed with robocopy...i got some homework to do now