Hey folks.
Windows server 2008 Workstation with terabyte internal RAID0 drive (you can already see the demand for backup)
Ubuntu Heron with a terabyte external LaCie drive (I'll let you know how it survives)

I want to back up a few working directories and setup utilities (totalling currently about 500GBish)

The ubuntu box im working off of is a rescued laptop otherwise I'd be upgrading to GbE but atm its boring 10/100 Cat5.

What do you guys think is the best approach?

Rsync over FTP (thankyou cygwin)
Windows own Volume Shadow Service (dont like trusting windows on a good day)
*Some other obscure plan i havent thought of yet*

What I'm currently sitting thru is splitting the volume in two NTFS partitions while connected directly to the server and copying most of what i need in on the second partition (just for transfer speed) and then taking it across to the ubuntu box, reformatting the first partion as ext3, then copying them across while i work on whatever solution we come up with.

Your advice/criticism would be greatly appreciated/heartbreaking.

G

I'd say use rsync (set up with a cron job, i.e. scheduled) personally.