Appropriate backup solution for small business...

[MisterMe]

Hey - I would appreciate any suggestion for a backup solution for a company lan of about 50 users. We have a backup server where all the various users save their valuable data. We want to be able to back up this entire volume of data to some sort of media that we can keep off site...rotating backup sets. The total capacity we would need would be about 175-200 Gigs...Any and all suggestions would be valued and appreciated! Thanks!

 

[WannaFly]

Wow!! 175-200 GIGS! For 50 users? WHAT ARE THEY STORING?!
Now that i have that out of my system:

If you need all 175GB backed up, it'd be quite expensive, but maybe you could purchase 7-10 200GB HDD's and make them hotswappable and just copy it and then take the HDD out and store it offsite.

I do realize the cost of that, and the possiblitiy of the HDDs failing, but the only other way i can think of is if you have a good internet uplink, an online backup (ontrack or something like that?)

 

[gaidin123]

What kind of data is being backed up? Is it compressed already (either the format like jpeg or mp3 or zipped)?

For backups of that size you have a couple options to choose from. Backing up to tape is the tried and true method for long term archiving but is also expensive. You could get a DLT (or other) tape library/changer and run whatever backup software you wish on it and keep X number of tape sets. If it was me and you didn't necessarily need very long term storage, I'd just get a few 200GB hard drives, toss them in to firewire cases and swap them out as needed.

At my work I use a linux box and firewire drive case with some of those swappable drive carrier things and run some nightly backups to it. We only use it for around 8.5GB of data per night but we swap the drives every week day so we get 3 weeks of full backups (no differential/incremental) on five 40-80GB hard drives. We use a few misc tape drives and a larger DLT tape library for our main backups.

If that data is highly compressable (ie mostly text files) you may be able to get away with doing DVD+/-R backups. 4.4GB per disc but if it took more than 5 discs or so for each I'd definitely go with another solution.

Gaidin

 

[wlee]

With the amount of Data you're trying to backup, you'll need a changer of some sort. This would prob fit the need. http://www.storagebysony.com/categories/categorymain.asp?id=9

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.asp?edc=225355

I'm pretty sure it's supported by Veritas Backup Exec

http://www.veritas.com

 

[ScottMac]

I'd say try a DLT tape library & backup software of your choice. I've been away from the corporate networks for a while, but someting like Arcserve used to to the trick. I believe that ArcServe has fallen from favor, but a search for Arcserve software should bring up similar competitive products.


After the inital backups, you'll only be backing up files that are changing, so the number you should be looking at is " How much does the stored data change" during a given period of time. IF much of the data is static (archives / library / reference) then you probably need a much smaller archiving system than your total data load suggests.

A headache at first, but once the routines are established, it's not as bad as it looks.

Good Luck

Scott

Edit: You may also want to investigate migrating to a SAN sometime in the future (again, depending on how dynamic your data is). Using a AN allows you to mirror in a partition as a RAID 0 stripe, then freeze that mirrored data set, and break the stripe, then back up the data snapshot offline. (NOTE: this is sort of an "old way" of doing SAN backups; many will provide a mechanism to back up live data ... stripe/freeze / backup works for smaller datasets and less-expensive SAN systems.)

 

[vi edit]

How much of that data is static, as in doesn't ever change? I've got over 20 gig worth of data that is used frequently, but doesn't ever change. It's archived accounting and payroll information from over 5 years ago that I still have users accessing on a daily basis, but there is no modifying going on. Is a lot of your data like that, or is it changing daily?

 

[Santa]

If you havn't already invested in hardware or media then I would perhaps look around for electronic online means of backup.

It is becoming more realistic with dropping cost of bandwidth and better software provided to limit unnecessary backup of static data.

Check around for some vendors that may do online backup such as Iron Mountain.

 

[SaigonK]

We use Legato for our NT/Unix/Sun servers, my netware servers run on Backup Exec (for right now). Both products work fine, though I find backupExec to require more work in the beginning.