We always have three 'main' computers. Probably that is old school, not too many eggs in one basket. You are doing same with your money why not doing same for your 'money' source?
In my previous posts I did mention about using home media server as one of our central for all backing up. It is cheap less then 100 bucks and can be put on any 'weak' computer, with a large 2 Tetra hard drive or more, as it doesn't require much CPU power.
I also use Acronis for local backup. In Win 7 or 'higher end' Server software, backing up feature already built in.
I tried both Home Media Server and Acronis and found that both are good but Home Media Server is more convenient. Using its boot disc, I could recover a crashed computer or clone a new one in less than half an hour.
Only four simple steps then you could implement an enterprise level AC system.
1. Do a full back up on you current pc with imported data included and copy the back up file it into a high capacity flash drive. I think for most solo docs, 16 gig flash drive is sufficient.
2. Install a 'fresh' Win 7 Pro or Ultimate in a newer computers. Personally I haven't seen CPU utilized on our system running more than 10% except when I doing a imported data sync. Our old XPs using quad core q9660 with 4 gig, the new ones using quad Xenon 10 gig. After all windows upgrades, install AC. Most the time if you install AC on a freshly OS without any extra or antivirus, you would see that the install is trouble free. If you upgrade from an old computer with lots of software already installed... the level of complexity mitgh be ten fold with unexpected errors. At the current software design, bugs can not be eliminated in a mixed environment. As my brain is only 1/10 as good compared to years back, I prefer a simple, less problem route.
3. Start your AC program, as it was blank, you might need to fill in first couple pages to make sure everything is running, SQL server connected. Then do a restore from your flash memory back up file in step 1. You don't even need to close your AC while doing backup that way the sql server port is still opened.
Now you have a brand new computer running AC with latest data.
4. configure your media server/acronis/windows' backup funtion to accept the new AC computer and do the new back up.
connect another new computer with same hard ware config as your new AC. Don't use a different hard ware config computer even it might run ok initially. Do a recover on the newer computer. Now you have two identical clone AC computers. You might want to do a third one and keep it safe at home. So three identical computers. Also need to rename your 1, 2 in your network.
Throw in bunch of external hard drives for more fun, now you have an 'enterprise+home' level system.
Have you heard of any triple redundancy system that crashes before? Nope, mathematically that is still possible but very rare. Double redundancy crashes? a lot.
