Alex Dean wrote:
> I need backup software for a home network.  Mix of Linux and OSX 
> machines.  Will be using an external HDD for backup media.  The backup 
> server will run on one of the OSX machines, since it's the only 
> non-laptop I have.  I'm mainly looking for something that's easy to 
> configure and has minimal resource consumption.
> 
> I've read a bit about BackupPC and Bacula.  So far, BackupPC seems 
> preferable because it looks much simpler.  (No client software to 
> install.  Cool!)  I'm interested in any opinions about these 2 packages, 
> or recommendations on other programs I ought to have a look at.

I've used 'rsnapshot' to great success in the past.  It's almost 
trivially simple to setup and works great.  It doesn't do anything 
"fancy", though, like file pooling between multiple machines or archive 
compression or anything like that.

If your OS X machine is running Leopard, then you might seriously 
consider just using Time Machine.  Time Machine is pretty sweet.  Unless 
something has changed, though, it doesn't handle networked drives.  You 
could always just create a massive folder on your OS X drive and rsync 
everything from your Linux boxes over every now and then, though.

I haven't used Bacula at all.  I have used BackupPC.  If you think it 
looks simpler than it's only because you haven't really gotten into it 
yet.  BackupPC is a *bear*.  Not at all for the faint of heart.

Kurt