Server backup- today's best solutions

[navychop]

We moved away some years ago from various quarter inch carts, and from the awfully slow RD1000, to 500 GB FreeAgent GoFlex EHDs for backup. We chose not to go the LTO route due to costs and speed concerns.

The GoFlex unit is running on USB 2 but is USB 3 capable, if we can find a USB 3 card to work under Server2008 R2 & SBS. It is no speed demon, but it runs overnight (just over 3 hours, fills a bit over half the volume) and produces a nice compact form factor for carrying offsite each day. Our second server will go online around the end of the month.

For a small business, and a limited budget, is this the best option?

And is it best to have two separate backup systems, one for each server, or a single one that will backup each server in turn (might have to move to 1GB drives)? And would USB 3 really speed up the process for backups?

Please share your experience.

 

[harshness]

Hard drives are probably the best option. USB 3.0 probably isn't worth the effort given the state of OS support.

I would suggest you look into eSATA.

I would also suggest that you seek a way to not have to back up the entire filesystem every night.

 

[mike123abc]

Another question is how much actual business data do you have to backup. We use both the EHDs for full image backups, but nightly we use an internet back up (jungledisk.com) to backup all our databases and documents to Amazon's cloud. It runs 14 cents per GB/month. We have about 250 GB backed up. This of course assumes you have a decent internet connection.

Since we have upgraded to Windows server 2008 R2 I have been looking for a NAS to do automatic backups. I will still keep jungledisk for the off site backup, but I would want to keep the NAS locked up somewhere else in the building away from the servers so that if we are broken into and they are stolen, hopefully we do not lose both the servers and the backup NAS.

 

[navychop]

Hard drives are probably the best option. USB 3.0 probably isn't worth the effort given the state of OS support.

I would suggest you look into eSATA.

I would also suggest that you seek a way to not have to back up the entire filesystem every night.

We're not backing up the entire filesystem each night. Selective, but not incremental. Need one disk with complete data.

 

[navychop]

Another question is how much actual business data do you have to backup. We use both the EHDs for full image backups, but nightly we use an internet back up (jungledisk.com) to backup all our databases and documents to Amazon's cloud. It runs 14 cents per GB/month. We have about 250 GB backed up. This of course assumes you have a decent internet connection.

Since we have upgraded to Windows server 2008 R2 I have been looking for a NAS to do automatic backups. I will still keep jungledisk for the off site backup, but I would want to keep the NAS locked up somewhere else in the building away from the servers so that if we are broken into and they are stolen, hopefully we do not lose both the servers and the backup NAS.

We are selective, but comprehensive so that "one disk does it all." It would get complicated to keep a series of disks offsite in the incremental scheme, especially considering the occasional backup failure. Not a lot of faith here in cloud or Internet backup systems.

We have a bonded T1 pair.

We also have a Patriot NAS, but it is not used for routine backup and does not have our full confidence. But that is a thought. Our server(s) is/are in a secured room, but if they really want to..... Perhaps I will set up an automatic NAS backup to follow the EHD backup, and stash it in a ceiling or somewhere out of sight.

 

[vodad]

We use a Cisco NAS, it is a little overkill for our needs, but it was not too expensive compared to the other ones available. I still think the Synology NAS would have been a good one, but all our other equipment is Cisco.

We keep it in another building on our company property. It is pretty much synchronized to the server nightly. along with the documents folder from all the computer systems in the office (that is mainly to get email back if something happened, our email is hosted by someone else) If we lose a computer I have to reload all the programs and stuff, but the data is still there. I have not lost one in over a year so if it happens it was probably time for a new install of software anyway.

The Cisco was $2000 with (4) 2 terabyte drives, which gives us like 6 TB in the Raid. our server may have 150 GB of data in it right now. so we are covered for a long time as long as the NAS lasts.

The thing I like about the NAS is, I plugged it in and pretty much forgot about it once it was set up, if it has an issue it emails and tells me what the problem is(so far that has been to tell me when the power went out and came back on) We gave it it's own Backup Power supply that will let it run for several hours if the power is out. It stays on until the power supply gets to like 15% then it starts to shut itself off.

 

[John Kotches]

navy:

It's nice to see you are thinking about your company's data. There are many small/medium businesses that aren't wise enough to do backups and they end up being hosed by a failure.

If you aren't having issues with your current backup speed, i.e. the backups aren't interfering with your day to day operations, I'd say that you are doing the right thing. When you get into a situation where backups are either impeding operations/throughput that's a problem. The worst is when you are into what I call "our lady of perpetual backup". That means one backup doesn't finish before the next one is supposed to start.

 

[navychop]

Our Lady visited us regularly with the RD1000...........

Common to come in the morning and still have an hour or two to go on the backup, and on occasion at day's end, not complete and had to be abandoned as the next backup was due to start.

I had to restore files more often than I cared when I worked at a small town on their Novell Network. Good thing I used the grandfather etc approach, because it was not uncommon for a backup to fail (unable to restore a file) without giving any notice whatsoever of the failure.

RAID on the servers,
RAID on the desktop,
RAID on the home machine,
RAID on the DVR EHD,
Not a bug in sight!