nightly backups to local server (differential), how to duplicate daily for off-site copy?

[Kremlar]

Trying to come up with a backup strategy and looking for some input.

We're trying to move away from individual tape drives on each server.  Our current plan is as follows:

 - dedicated backup server running Backup Exec 2010 R2

 - full backup of all servers (~1.3TB) to local RAID 6 array on backup server over gigabit every Friday night (I figure I may need the weekend to complete a full backup of all servers)

 - starting Monday night we do differentials every day, until the next Friday when another full backup is performed.

However, I need to duplicate this to a removable drive so we can take a copy off-site every day.  How can we come up with a simple method to duplicate a full backup + current differential every night?  I need to make it simple so that the person in charge of swappping the removable drive does not get confused. 

My initial thought was 5 USB hard drives that are rotated through every night.  Each nightly backup job to the local disk duplicates to the USB drive.  Problem is with only 5 drives on a Friday there is no off-site copy because the full backup from the previous week is being overwritten that night.

Would appreciate any feedback...

Thanks!

[pkh]

You need to set up the USB drives that you are going to duplicate to according to the procedure given by my solution for your other discussion

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/backup-exec-2010-backup-disk-then-duplicate-swappable...

I presume that you are going to do a full backup during the weekend, in which case, you don't need to do a differential backup on Friday since you are going to do a full backup.  You scheme should be full backup during the weekend and differential backups on Mon - Thu.  Your 5 disk should be sufficient.

[Kremlar]

My problem would be Friday night.  On that day my last full off-site backup would be plugged into the server, getting overwritten.  If something happened over the weekend my data would be lost.

Is there a way to duplicate the last full + latest differential EVERY night to external drive?

Or am I better off somehow rotating between 2 Friday night drives?

Trying to cover every circumstance...

[Ken_Putnam · Accepted solution]

Is there a way to duplicate the last full + latest differential EVERY night to external drive? 

Duplicating the just finished job is a simple matter.  Duplicting the just finished job and one that completed on another day would require some serious scripting using BEMCMD

Or am I better off somehow rotating between 2 Friday night drives?

That would be the easiest to implement, and would require only 6 drives.