So I built myself a new Linux File Server / FTP / Workstation. I have it up and running. Samba is working fine on my home network (SuSE 9.3 / WinXP / WinXP). Here is what I "want" to do:

I have an extra drive on my main XP box called "Archives", it's where I store all my 'stuff'. I've in the past manually copied the contents over to my 2nd XP box, which was used as a Rhinosoft Serv-U Pro FTP server. But now, I have the Linux box ready to go with my 2 X 250Gb Barracuda SATA drives in RAID 1 format (Linux software RAID).

I purchased Acronis True Image 8, which I was 'told' would do everything I want - which is to automatically take my "Archive" drive and copy it over the network onto my Linux FTP server. It could do 'incremental' backups, etc. However, Acronis will do this to an extent - but only with its Image formats. In other words, it will create an image file on that drive, do incremental updates, etc.. but it will not do it in un-compressed "normal" format. This doesn't work for my FTP purposes. It's great for preserving images of drives, but not for copying files over to an FTP server for access to them.

So I'm looking for a solution to automatically do this. I've looked at Genie Backup as a possible solution, but was wondering if there is perhaps a way to run a Cron job in Linux to just go to the "Archive" drive and copy it onto the md0 (raid) drive? I know it wouldn't do "incremental", but I suppose it could copy everything.

Since it won't do incremental, maybe I could have it whipe the md0 drive clean once a week and then copy the "Archive" drive over? This way the FTP would have the exact structure I want from my "Archive" drive, since its the drive I use most often, change, re-organize, etc. Even with incremental backup, I suppose it would get messy when I moved around folders and files, as I normally do when I re-organize my photos, files, etc.

Any suggestions?