Backups Using Arkeia

My salvation for backups appeared to be the Arkeia free software for Linux (one of the editors' picks at LinuxWorld). Using the ``synchronizer utility'' in ws_ftp, I can in principle automatically mirror my Windows disks to my Linux machine (using samba and smbfs to network the Windows and Linux file systems), and then I only have to back up the Linux machine using Arkeia. However, this plan hit a snag: The ws_ftp synchronizer does not reliably finish its operations. The problem seems to be a breakdown in the ftp protocol, possibly due to a network problem. From the other direction, it does not work to back up Windows ``shares'' mounted by smbmount on the Linux machine -- I checked. It pretends to work, but no files are actually written to tape. Backup software which supports both Linux and Windows on the same networked machine is rather expensive, since few home users have both. At the moment, I am relying on haphazard mirroring across machines for my backup, plus an occasional ftp to CCRMA of anything related to my courses.