what would you reccomend for backups for a small business?

[mcveigh]

I'm just wondering what you all you think? Raid1, 5 tape, CDRW, zip disks, online back up services....

Say you $2500 to spend on a new server and 20 gigs to back up.
Forget tape librarys and multiple servers. I'm thinking Raid 1 with hot swappable drives, and about once a week taking a backup home.

I'm asking this because this question is coming up more and more for me. Not all small business's can spend 2000 on a backup solution, especially when they have 5 PC's runnign windows 98 in a peer to peer network with no backups, and half the time they can't find they files they need.

 

[Tsaico]

I vote for tape. I know you didn't want that tape library, but for a small buisness I think it is the most cost effective one. You cankeep just a small library of say 12 tapes. One for each month, and every year, just start over. I think as far as sheer strage it is by far the cheapest from 300 for your basic drives to 2,000 for some of the nicer automated high capacity ones. and being able to store 66gb-1,980GB per tape, you can't beat that.
Not to mention, I don't think you can hav hotswapable in IDE raid arrays, so to convert SCSI AND get that hotswap array card qould be too much. Also, why not just have one server... even win98se can handle that... not wel, but it can handle if they have no other choice. Also why need a back up if thier problem is not being able to find their files? If they have a problem or fear of losing data, then back up all day. But if that is what their core problem is, then they just need a btter filing system for thair data and some basic computer training.

 

[Snoop]

How much data is their to backup?
I setup a little server for a company and did raid 1, and had a cd burner burn important files daily. Their database was only like 20 megs though so if you need to backup more than that maybe look to a tape backup/DVD RW along with Raid.

 

[mcveigh]

I'm just speaking in general, not for any specific situtation.


Tsaico, what tape drives do you know of for $300? what about tape costs?

 

[PlatinumGold]

i'd go w/ travan tape. you can rotate the tapes. you don't have to buy that many. anything you wanna archive burn to CD. backups should be used to restore system to operating condition (if your on a low budget) and you archive to CD-R. relatively cheap and pretty permanent solution.

 

[RemyCanad]

I would go for tape also. It's still really the best solution. I guess you could get a DVD-RW drive and go that route. I have never tried that before though. I dont like raid becuase of fire and such. I only use raid in conjunction with tape, or some other media I can take off site and put in a fire proof filling cabnet.

I would make them store all there files on a file server. I know the inetial cost of a win2k or novell sever may be a bit high. But it doesnt need to be anything great. A celeron 500Mhz could do that job just fine.

 

[mcveigh]

anyone know of good online stores to get tape drives from?

I tried newegg and directron, both don't have them

 

[PlatinumGold]

check out dell. they have decent prices. i'm sure they would carry tape drives as they offer them as options to their servers.

 

[Daovonnaex]

RAID 5 (or 6), or an Iomega Peerless.

 

[JellyBaby]

The problem with tape is that it's slow and much more unreliable than, say, a hard drive. Speaking of which for my personal use on the next rig, I plan to install a rack mount unit and just buy cheap, high-capacity hard drives and use them only for backup purposes. The price per meg should be close to tape and you get speed, reliability and the option to use the hard drives as....hard drives if you wish.

 

[l7s4]

mcveigh--backup only works if they do it religiously. Best stragety is the 3 tape rotation...daily, weekly and monthly. Weekly goes home with the manager...swapped for daily every week. Monthly stored in bank vault..swapped for daily once/month. Be sure to run stool pigeon file...check to see if this file can be restored to verify tape fidelity.

This regime protects against loss of hd, loss of computer or loss of facility. If you have to go to the weekly tap, on average loss only 3 days of data...if habe to go to monthly...~15 days of data loss.

Only backup data...on fail, plan on new install of os and programs...then restore the data.

For tape, read your media type. If you use cd's, remember that you have to reset files attributes..they will be read only going thru cd burn. Also, on network system, all workstations/clients have to be logged off the critical program(s) to make the backup.

Good luck, Paul

 

[Woodie]

Raid is not a backup solution, it's a redundancy feature.

Tape or DVDR/CDR...the problem is where to run, and what to backup? What they really need is an old Compaq server (~$150) w/ HDs in a SCSI RAID array. Add in a server OS (NT or W2K -- $?) and a SCSI based backup media. For a file server, a P166 class should be ok. Make sure it has the SCSI RAID, because that'll be the bottle-neck from the user perspective.

Now, you have to train all the users to save all their files to the server, and then you can run a daily/weekly/monthly burn of all the data...NOT the OS! You want cheap, that's what you get. Even w/ the tape setup, you have to reinstall the base OS (manually) in order to do a full system restore. Now, schedule a daily task to backup all the data directories to the media. Rotate media as per other posts.

I still think the more difficult problem will be "finding" the right info to back up. I would suggest the "server" box be partitioned w/ 2 drives: C = OS only. D = data only.

Create a (private) directory for each user on the D drive, along with a shared directory where they can share files, put project files, etc..

G/L.

 

[dullard]

The number one cause that a small business will lose its data is theft. Someone breaks in, steals the computers and runs off. Keep this in mind with your backup plan. Fires are another important but more rare problem.

Raid1\Raid5: These are usually internal drives and will be stolen along with the computer. Thus the backup is useless.
Tape: Works well if you train them to take the tape home and have more than one tape. Very slow and trouble occurs when that person who takes the tapes home is sick/on vacation since the business usually doesn't backup on those days. My mother-in-law works at a small businesses that left the tapes in the computer - then the computer was stolen and everything was lost.
CDRW: Far too difficult to backup 20 GB. That is 33 CDs that must be repeatedly made. That would turn into a full time job - something a small business can't afford. Usually thieves won'd steal non-music CDs. With 33 CD's, I doubt anyone will bring these home every night - thus you aren't protected from fires.
DVD-RW: Better than the CD and can be easily transported home at night.
Jaz disks: Expensive! Last I looked they were $50/GB. Thus you are talking $1000+drive cost for just one backup - you usually want two backups to rotate so you are talking $2000 + drive cost.
Online remote backup: Will avoid theft and fire problems, but I don't know what it will cost.

The cheapest and fastest method I know of: buy two 20 GB firewire harddrives. Then have someone keep one harddrive at home and swap regularly.

 

[mcveigh]

Here's what happened to me and a lesson I learned:
I had 4 IBM 75 GXP hard drives in 2 raid 1 arrays, in a 3 day period last year 3 of the 4 failed.
1 array was for the OS, the other for the data. Luckily I had a script which backed up the data once a week and copied it to both arrays. I was able to restore. we only lost about 2 days of data.
What I do now on that particular server. Got new seagate HD's for the data array, the script backs up every night. and I use rsync to back up the backup everynight to the owners house.
It's also the reason I hate Ibm hard drives.

I have never used tape drives, and I'm looking for a solution that is both cheap and has little or no human interactin required. I may set up a system involving someone having to switch tapes or drives or something but how long till they forget?

 

[kranky]

Two key bits of information are needed to make a recommendation:

1. How much of the 20GB really needs to be backed up frequently?
Not all of the 20GB is changing all the time, just the data they are creating. The operating system and commercial software can be reloaded if needed, so no sense wasting time backing it up all the time.

2. How much would it cost the business to recreate any missing data, and how important is that data to keeping the business operating?
Knowing that, you can evaluate what solution makes the most sense. For example, if they can re-enter a week's worth of lost data in a couple hours, that's not worth using an expensive backup system.

No matter what, if you can't take the data off-site, you haven't solved the backup problem. You might have redundant copies, but that's not the answer if everything is in the same box (RAID), or sitting next to the box (tapes/CD-R/DVD-RW that aren't taken off-site).

Most small businesses who have a catastrophic failure (losing everything) end up going out of business. With that kind of risk, they have an obligation to be diligent about backups. Remind them that 100% of all disk drives will fail - you just don't know when. The biggest service you can provide to a small business is to get them to appreciate and understand how critical their computers are to running their operation (in most cases).

I have been a sysadmin for 15 years and was a co-owner of a remote backup service for awhile so I'm pretty well acquainted with the importance of backups.

 

[mcveigh]

<< Two key bits of information are needed to make a recommendation:

2. How much would it cost the business to recreate any missing data, and how important is that data to keeping the business operating?
Knowing that, you can evaluate what solution makes the most sense. For example, if they can re-enter a week's worth of lost data in a couple hours, that's not worth using an expensive backup system.. >>



Good point!



<<

Most small businesses who have a catastrophic failure (losing everything) end up going out of business. With that kind of risk, they have an obligation to be diligent about backups. Remind them that 100% of all disk drives will fail - you just don't know when. The biggest service you can provide to a small business is to get them to appreciate and understand how critical their computers are to running their operation (in most cases).

I have been a sysadmin for 15 years and was a co-owner of a remote backup service for awhile so I'm pretty well acquainted with the importance of backups. >>



I agree, but I've been having problems communicating that to some people. They think just beacuse their hard drive hasn't failed yet they don't need to do anything. It gets frustrating. and I get REALLY PISSED OFF if they start acting like I'm telling them this just to get more money.

 

[Tsaico]

here is one that is cheap and reliable, but only stores 8gb, (might work if you want to back up data, not the drive) here and on price watch, you can find travan 4/8gb tapes for about 20 a tape. True it isn't the fastest solution out there, but an hour or two before your shop closes on fri, someone can hit go on the file server and it wil be done by the time you guys are ready to take off. If there is some sort of data loss, then there will be only a couple hours from the last day of the week to re-enter or recover. If you want faster stuff, and willing to pay the premiums on it, then check out VXA tape drives We used the drives at work to back up a web server with about 600gb worth. THey work fast and are very reliable. Kinda expensive though, i belleive they start at $599, and go all the way up to low $18K, but that is when you get the nearly 2k gb storage solutions, which is probably much more than most people will ever need. (these monsters work by writing to multiple tapes at the same time)

Edit: Oh another things about the drive idea, they are a little more fragile, ie being dropped or submerged in water/liqud whereas tapes are much more durable... (we had a guy drop a tape into a toilet when he was taking a piss, and the tape was still good, smelled funny, but the info wasn't lost) DVD/CDs are pretty durable too, but they cost a little more than tapes and carry less information. The time on VXA's transfers are about 3 megs/sec which isn't much slower than a 24x burner. SO backing up on DVD's that transfer at less then 2, making a tape will be faster than DVDs. It takes about four minutes to make a back up of 1 gig with our tape drive.

 

[vi edit]

You can get a travan 10/20gig TBU drive for about $220. The tapes run about $22 a piece or so. If you buy a retail drive, it should come with a workstation edition of backup exec. All you need to do is check the folders you want to back up, save the job, and then schedule it to run after business hours M-F.

All they'll really need to do is pull out the tape in the morning and pop in a new one.

The key here is OFF SITE STORAGE.

If the entire building burns down, then regardless of how many times you've backup up the data, if you don't have anything off site, you're toast. ZERO chance of recovery.

 

[JellyBaby]

<< The tapes run about $22 a piece or so. >>

Argh, try $35-40 for TR5s. If you know of a place offering them at $22, spill da beans!

The only trouble with tape is reliability. That's why multiple backup sets are a must.

 

[mcveigh]

Is there a standard for tapes anymore? DDS? VXA?

 

[vi edit]

JellyBaby, I bought the Sony ones from CDW for about $22 a piece. I did buy 20 of them at a time so maybe my rep gave me a discount.

 

[Thor86]

Tapes are slow. Get an Onstream. They're at least faster.

 

[JellyBaby]

vi_edit, they ought to cost $22 (or less). You can't tell me a tape cartridge is that costly to make.

Thor86, I tried to buy on OnStream unit once but the retailer said they were so unreliable they wouldn't recommend one. Plus the company just went through bankruptcy. Not good.