Backup: What do you guys think about my concept.

[ndee]

OK, here goes:
We need to backup all our stuff, etc. and we need a cheap solution. So I suggested, we take a computer, put 4x200GB harddisks in there, and use that as our ultimate backup server. Linux would be our operating system of choice. I looked at the Veritas software and I'm just so fed up. The "overwrite" protection is TEH stupid. It just doesn't work the way we configurated it, yeeeeees, maybe we suck blabla, but I don't care. I'm just wondering about the idea with a single server soley for backup purposes.

 

[ChefJoe]

Eh, backups... regular backups of the files to a single server, then backups of the single server at a different location.

Also, regular checks on the data integrity are important.

 

[ndee]

Originally posted by: ChefJoe
Eh, backups... regular backups of the files to a single server, then backups of the single server at a different location.

Also, regular checks on the data integrity are important.

Yes, we want that cross-thingie. We have 2 different locations which are connected with a 2mbit Link. With 2 such servers, they could backup each other over that line, does that sound ok?

 

[nan0bug]

Tape backups are a better solution, albeit slower. 200gb hd's are new tech, I wouldn't trust them enough if the data is very important.

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: ndee

Originally posted by: ChefJoe
Eh, backups... regular backups of the files to a single server, then backups of the single server at a different location.

Also, regular checks on the data integrity are important.

Yes, we want that cross-thingie. We have 2 different locations which are connected with a 2mbit Link. With 2 such servers, they could backup each other over that line, does that sound ok?

2mbit and you want to transfer a possible 800GB? What are you smoking? Get a cheap DLT tape drive off ebay, get ARCserve(its cheaper but not as good as veritas) and use that.

 

[dman]

Depends on how important the data is.

2mbit link may not be enough, depending on how much data.

What config for the drives? Raid 0+1? For a total if 400GB available?

Maybe req. a DVDRW Drive and some media for making archival points (4.7GB) of very important data.

 

[ndee]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82

Originally posted by: ndee

Originally posted by: ChefJoe
Eh, backups... regular backups of the files to a single server, then backups of the single server at a different location.

Also, regular checks on the data integrity are important.

Yes, we want that cross-thingie. We have 2 different locations which are connected with a 2mbit Link. With 2 such servers, they could backup each other over that line, does that sound ok?

2mbit and you want to transfer a possible 800GB? What are you smoking? Get a cheap DLT tape drive off ebay, get ARCserve(its cheaper but not as good as veritas) and use that.

OK, I thought it was quite obvious that we wouldn't want to transfer all that 800GB. We have 800GB, so that we can store more generations of a file. We could make 2 backups simulatenously, one to the server in Location A, one to the server in Location B. I'm not sure yet how much data we have to backup every night, but for SURE not 800GB.

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: ndee

Originally posted by: iamwiz82

Originally posted by: ndee

Originally posted by: ChefJoe
Eh, backups... regular backups of the files to a single server, then backups of the single server at a different location.

Also, regular checks on the data integrity are important.

Yes, we want that cross-thingie. We have 2 different locations which are connected with a 2mbit Link. With 2 such servers, they could backup each other over that line, does that sound ok?

2mbit and you want to transfer a possible 800GB? What are you smoking? Get a cheap DLT tape drive off ebay, get ARCserve(its cheaper but not as good as veritas) and use that.

OK, I thought it was quite obvious that we wouldn't want to transfer all that 800GB. We have 800GB, so that we can store more generations of a file. We could make 2 backups simulatenously, one to the server in Location A, one to the server in Location B. I'm not sure yet how much data we have to backup every night, but for SURE not 800GB.

I would not go about making backup plans based on what you are currently doing, but rather what is goal/plan is for the future. Otherwise, you will have to rethink your backup once you tap this one out. Either way, 2mbit is too slow. How much data are you assuming will be transferred a day? 10GB? That would take something like 10 hours a day, if i'm going my math correctly.

 

[Double Trouble]

Having a single backup server like that is not a bad idea, just make sure that you use RAID 1 (not 0) on your server, and that you do multiple generation incremental backups. Do one full backup every so often, and then do incremental backups every night (or something like that). Keep each nightly backup in a separate directory (where the date is part of the directory name), and keep a rolling time frame of a few weeks, so you always have a few weeks worth of incremental backups available.

You could always do a backup to DVDRW or something like that for the most crucial data, but that might be unnecessary.

Boy, all that for 400GB of pr0n

 

[ndee]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82

Originally posted by: ndee

Originally posted by: iamwiz82

Originally posted by: ndee

Originally posted by: ChefJoe
Eh, backups... regular backups of the files to a single server, then backups of the single server at a different location.

Also, regular checks on the data integrity are important.

Yes, we want that cross-thingie. We have 2 different locations which are connected with a 2mbit Link. With 2 such servers, they could backup each other over that line, does that sound ok?

2mbit and you want to transfer a possible 800GB? What are you smoking? Get a cheap DLT tape drive off ebay, get ARCserve(its cheaper but not as good as veritas) and use that.

OK, I thought it was quite obvious that we wouldn't want to transfer all that 800GB. We have 800GB, so that we can store more generations of a file. We could make 2 backups simulatenously, one to the server in Location A, one to the server in Location B. I'm not sure yet how much data we have to backup every night, but for SURE not 800GB.

I would not go about making backup plans based on what you are currently doing, but rather what is goal/plan is for the future. Otherwise, you will have to rethink your backup once you tap this one out. Either way, 2mbit is too slow. How much data are you assuming will be transferred a day? 10GB? That would take something like 10 hours a day, if i'm going my math correctly.

Jup, you're actually right. That 2mbit link won't get me too far I did the math and also came up with about 10 hours.....

tagej: that's what I wanted to do, but I think we also need a tape cuz we have a mission-critical database which is about 10GBs and there is no way we can back that up to a different location.

 

[Double Trouble]

Actually, you could also use a dataport such as the one found here. There's lots of different types available, but basically you could just put a 200GB drive in the dataport, do all the backups, and at the end of the day, take the dataport off-site somewhere. If the data is sensitive (financial, personal etc), you could encrypt your backup data before having it taken off-site.

 

[ndee]

Originally posted by: tagej
Actually, you could also use a dataport such as the one found here. There's lots of different types available, but basically you could just put a 200GB drive in the dataport, do all the backups, and at the end of the day, take the dataport off-site somewhere. If the data is sensitive (financial, personal etc), you could encrypt your backup data before having it taken off-site.

The problem is, the server MAY not be down. Never. Expect on Sunday cuz that is the only day we don't work.

 

[bunker]

Originally posted by: ndee

Originally posted by: tagej
Actually, you could also use a dataport such as the one found here. There's lots of different types available, but basically you could just put a 200GB drive in the dataport, do all the backups, and at the end of the day, take the dataport off-site somewhere. If the data is sensitive (financial, personal etc), you could encrypt your backup data before having it taken off-site.

The problem is, the server MAY not be down. Never. Expect on Sunday cuz that is the only day we don't work.

Which is why we had a rotating schedule of someone coming in on Sunday nights to do our backups.

 

[Double Trouble]

It doesn't have to be "down" -- get an external dataport so you can hotplug drives into it. You'll use the server to do regular backups, and then do a backup of the server data onto external/dataport drives. You can hotplug those drives without problems, so the server would just be humming along......

 

[ndee]

Originally posted by: bunker

Originally posted by: ndee

Originally posted by: tagej
Actually, you could also use a dataport such as the one found here. There's lots of different types available, but basically you could just put a 200GB drive in the dataport, do all the backups, and at the end of the day, take the dataport off-site somewhere. If the data is sensitive (financial, personal etc), you could encrypt your backup data before having it taken off-site.

The problem is, the server MAY not be down. Never. Expect on Sunday cuz that is the only day we don't work.

Which is why we had a rotating schedule of someone coming in on Sunday nights to do our backups.

I ask my boss if he buys me a car for that task hehe j/k


OK, I gonna look into that Dataport thingie, thanks Tagej

Yeah, but the problem is, we need to install a firewire card or something similar, cuz the server doesn't have a firewire port I hope they have external SCSI harddisk enclosures. And it's a 2U Server so I'm not sure if there is space for an internal Dataport thingie.

 

[Double Trouble]

No problem, good luck!

Data backups are a lot more complicated than people think. It's easy to back up your data at home, but when you have 24x7 servers, and many users, and critical data, and uptime requirements etc etc, things can get more difficult.

If you want a very cheap software package that's actually surprisingly efficient with lots of options to do backups, take a look at Smartbackup. No, it's not a fancy enterprise-caliber backup package, but for small/medium sized stuff, it does remarkably well. It also allows you to automatically encrypt data when backing it up. Pretty nifty for a small cheap package.....

 

[ndee]

Originally posted by: tagej
No problem, good luck!

Data backups are a lot more complicated than people think. It's easy to back up your data at home, but when you have 24x7 servers, and many users, and critical data, and uptime requirements etc etc, things can get more difficult.

If you want a very cheap software package that's actually surprisingly efficient with lots of options to do backups, take a look at Smartbackup. No, it's not a fancy enterprise-caliber backup package, but for small/medium sized stuff, it does remarkably well. It also allows you to automatically encrypt data when backing it up. Pretty nifty for a small cheap package.....

we have Veritas 8.6 here and I hate it. It's the most stupid program I've ever used. I gonna look into that little tool

 

[NogginBoink]

Whatever you do, TEST YOUR ABILITY TO RESTORE!

There's nothing worse than doing backups for years, then finding out when disaster strikes that you're not able to restore your data the way you thought you'd be able to.

I see it almost every day.