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Thread: [SERVER] Backup Methods

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    Squeeler Vini's Avatar
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    [SERVER] Backup Methods

    i am looking for alternative ways to back our server(s)

    we currently use tapes, but having never been a fan of tapes, believe there is a better way to backup 500gb daily.

    though im not sure of the other ways... so i was hopping your vital opinions could help me

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    Administrator Moby-Dick's Avatar
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    500Gb ?
    thats a fair whack to back up.

    hwo much of it is changing daily ?

    I'm not a huge fan of tapes either, but with that capacity to back up , what ever you choose wont' be cheap.

    You could look at portable NAS solutions that would go offsite.

    how many servers are you wanting to back up , and what is the type of data you want to back up ?

    what do you want to acheieve with them ?

    prevention against accidental deletion ? full DR capability ?
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    Squeeler Vini's Avatar
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    500gb is a little over specced its about 400 at the moment, and it all changes daily.

    its emails, and lots of sql databases.

    we could append each backup with the daily changes, but we dont at the minute.

    ive thought of a few 400gb one touch drives... that seems a little home user to be honest though.

    were after full DR capabilities.

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    Full DR ?

    hope you have a big budget.

    How many phsycial boxes ?
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    Squeeler Vini's Avatar
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    its 5 servers, all users sync their documents to the servers. at the minute we run tape backups nightly, these spread over three tapes, and its getting to the stage where we cannot do one a night due to the switching and speed of tapes.

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    You might have to look at disk to disk to tape ?

    ie have a nice big NAS / SAN that backups stream to which can run off to tape 24/7 ( especialyl if you use an auto loader. )

    without spending a lot on big point to point connections tapes are still one of the better offsite backup techniques.

    you can get faster / larger tapes which isn't too bad.

    you might also want to think about not doing full backups every night. - you may be able to get away with differentials for during the week and full backups at weekends.

    Also look at how you have your SQL backing up - its easy to create a lot of data which isn't needed if you dont have your maintenance plans correctly set.
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    imo just stick to tapes. Pretty straight forward and for that amount of data they are perfect.

    At work we have probably about 10Tb (think its more actually) of data which needs to be safeguarded and we use an IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (great big tape system with little robotic arm to move the tapes around and swap them in and out). Bit out of your budget but around the site we still have some users who use their own tape drives in a department to back up 200-300GB of data.

    May be worth purchasing a firesafe too if you dont have one.
    Last edited by Firebar; 01-11-2005 at 01:07 PM.

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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    I think its incrementals that will be the key for you!

    Weekend, full backup.

    Weekdays incremental to the weekends full backup.

    It never hurts to upgrade the tape drive (as has been said) You might find that you want to do the incrementals on removeable HDD. Hot Swap HDDs are quite good, were are you keeping the tapes at the moment? Offsight, firesafe?
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    at the minute we have hot swap hdd's we have a firesafe and theyre kept offsite in it.

    we have an open budget, so anything goes. but im thinking that there must be cheaper methods than tapes in the long run.

    heck we could have a server dedicated to backups and that would probably be cheaper than a robotic arm.

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    heck we could have a server dedicated to backups and that would probably be cheaper than a robotic arm.
    As I say a staging server for disk -> disk -> tape topology would help overcome your current issues with a backup window that is too small.

    You say you want Disaster Recovery - what level of disaster do you want to recover from ( this is not a trick question )

    do you want to be able to keep operating if you loose 1 box ? , what about loosing all 5 due to an environmental issue ( fire / flood )

    consider more than just your backups here , after all a tape is utterly useless if you have nothing to resotre it to.

    why not consider a server mirroring solution to a DR site over a WAN ?
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheAnimus
    I think its incrementals that will be the key for you!

    Weekend, full backup.

    Weekdays incremental to the weekends full backup.

    It never hurts to upgrade the tape drive (as has been said) You might find that you want to do the incrementals on removeable HDD. Hot Swap HDDs are quite good, were are you keeping the tapes at the moment? Offsight, firesafe?
    Differentials possibly but have you ever tried restoring from incrementals?
    I havent and I dont intend to. Ever.
    "In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship."

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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    indeed, thats why i would recomend having only a 1 step.

    each week the incremental is done to the weekends full backup. That way its only a 2 step restore, or 1 step if you just want that weeks.
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheAnimus
    indeed, thats why i would recomend having only a 1 step.

    each week the incremental is done to the weekends full backup. That way its only a 2 step restore, or 1 step if you just want that weeks.
    Thats called a differential
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    Mail boxes are the bane of our lives. I believe, but for the life of me cannot remember what its called, that one of the modern backup software suites backs up changes to mail files rather than the whole mail file. E.g. you have a user with a 700Mb mail file, you back up trhe mail file at the weekend, during the week the software can actually back up the changes to the mail file as emails arrive and others are deleted.

    Sorry but I cannot remember what the software is called
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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by badass
    Thats called a differential
    indeedly!
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