We're looking into options, Mac. As I say, I was unaware of this until I read Clayton's comments on May 28 (it's been ages since I was on the forum past 1 am). For one, I've requested that Rackspace reschedule the backup time to 3 am (still cocktail time somewhere, but better than midnight or 1 am). Beyond that, we're looking into the possibility of adding a mirrored database server, so that they can back up the mirror and not affect the primary. It takes about 1.25 hours on average to run the backup (over 7 GB of data in the forums, plus 456 tables and over 70 million records!).
Bear with us, now that we're aware of the situation. We'll come up with a solution (like: watch TV instead!! lol!!).