Thoughts on our backup strategy

Zucarita9000

Golden Member
Aug 24, 2001
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I'm looking for some feedback on our backup strategy. Any input, tips or advice will be very appreciated.

We have a server with three hard drives. One is dedicated for the OS and system apps, the other two are for data (there's no RAID). The system drive has about 45GB of data, the data drives about 230GB combined.

I perform daily images of the system hard drive using Acronis True Image. I find this app extremely reliable as I had the sick pleasure of restoring the server several times from disk images in less than 30 minutes, so I know it works. I keep one image for every day of the week.

These dailies are stored in two different hard drives: A local USB external hard drive and a remote NAS hard drive hidden in a rack in the adjacent building, about 150 feet away.

I also perform daily incremental backups of the data drives in the local external drive.

Then, weekly, full images of the data drives on both hard drives (local and NAS).

So, I have daily redundant images for every day of the week for the system drive, daily incremental backups of the data drives and also redundant weekly images of those data drives.

I'm thinking about splitting bi-weekly disk images into 4GB chunks so I can burn them to DVDs, or maybe just get a third external drive for offsite storage in a security deposit box/vault.


Any thoughts?
 

RebateMonger

Elite Member
Dec 24, 2005
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Don't use DVDs. Too much work, not reliable enough.

My clients normally swap out the currently connected hard drive for another and move the current drive offsite.
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
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Agree with RebateMonger. I believe in having a ready-to-go duplicate OS drive. ( I use the Acronis TI clone function periodically after major upgrades or changes.) That drive is in the rack but the power connector removed from it. That is a complete "backup" for the OS drive - no restore needed.

I keep my data of a RAID i array, and back that up to an external drive weekly.