Backup Ideas

[pinkpanther56]

We currently have a small collection of servers that we backup to tape each night it currently consists of:

2 x Poweredge 2600 with 100/200 LTO drives that have approx 70 Gig data on each.

1 x Intel based server with 50Gig on that backs up to one of the poweredge servers via remote agent.

1 x HP ML350 with SQL server that runs our MIS system.

We are looking to move all of our equipment into racks gradually as we replace the servers and the first one to be replaced will be the HP. This replacement server will probably not have a tape drive so we are looking for ideas to back this up, we do have money to purchase a NAS with a tape device in but i am unsure about backing up to one (software / agents required?). We have a 1 Gig backbone between the server and the NAS and the network is only used during office hours 8AM to 6PM.

The MIS system will probably hold approx 80-120Gigs of data do you think this is a suitable setup for backing up across the network?

Also is this the sort of setup where we could eventually backup all of these boxes over night to the NAS or would our available bandwidth be too little. All servers are physically located in the same area and connect through HP procurve 1 Gig switch ports.

Currently all of our servers run Windows 2003 server and we use Backup Exec 11d.

Any input would be appreciated and please ask for ant extra info you require.

Thanks.

 

[LWComputingMVP]

Why would you backup to a NAS? How would you take the NAS off site?

You might want to read over my backup comment because if your situation is as you described, I'm not sure you have an optimal plan - or even close to one.

http://www.lwcomputing.com/tips/static/backup.asp

You could simply get a couple of drives and use them as temporary storage space, then use the built-in Windows and SQL backups to backup to one of the servers with a tape drive.

 

[pinkpanther56]

Well Dell suggested using a NAS with an LTO tape drive in that can then be backed up over a longer period without affecting performance. We have a problem at the moment that the backup is still running in the morning and affects performance, they suggested that disk to disk would be much faster then that can be run off to tape for off site storage.

I'll take a look at your link. Currently all out data is backed up to LTO tapes each night and then taken off site, i thought that was a pretty standard procedure.

Thanks.

 

[LWComputingMVP]

Ok, that makes a LITTLE more sense.

I still wouldn't use NAS per se - there are specifically designed NAS-type systems that can consolidate data (for example, make sure you only have one copy of a file even if the same exact file lives in 5 different places).

Backing up ALL your data each night is not really common... what tends to make more sense is a backup scheme that fully backs up your data over the weekend and then differential backups are performed during the week - differentials will be MUCH shorter (almost certainly). Now, your business needs may require it, but you haven't exactly provided a detailed description of what your business does.

Frankly, if you were going to use D2D2T, I would recommend contacting companies (other than Dell) that can provide more backup specific solutions.

 

[pinkpanther56]

We are a high school.

I'll be getting in touch with a couple of local companies i just wanted to get some ideas and background to help us make the right decisions.

Thanks.

 

[richyd]

An excellent backup to disk solution which is managed off site is BobtheBackup.com

Once a full backup has occured, there is a biniary mode which only backs up the file changes each night or when ever you set the automated backups.

This is an offsite solution too which you could use as disaster recovery

 

[grinstb]

From a school here also. I am backing up around 35 servers nightly with fulls on the weekend and incremental's at night with full database backups every night. We currently have a Dell NAS 775n and a Dell 132t 23 tape dual drive changer. We went to the rack mount scheme several years ago with a centralized tape system. If I had to do it over again I would not do the nas box os that comes with Windows Storage Server instead of the regular OS. We have never really used the NAS functionality so it is just one more thing to keep track of for us. I would just get a 1950 and attached the tape changer drive to it directly or double up one of your existing servers duties. You should not have a problem with bandwidth as that about matches our setup here. You may need some additional agents.

hope this helps

 

[k3n85]

I don't think you'll have much of a bandwidth problem rather the limitation of how fast your NAS solution can write to the disks. I'm from a university setting and we're currently doing about 800 gb on the weekends, nightly differentials ~40-60 gb. Times on these can vary, but we're also writing to an pricey HP 6030 autoloader (28 tapes, 1 drive) so that may be a bit overkill for your solution. We also have a recovery option just a single external LTO drive hooked up to a smaller server via SCSI w/ some larger hard drives.

These jobs don't take that long on a side note. Backup Exec performs it's verifications which take a bit longer but should effect other systems. Jobs @ about 300-400 take about 7-8 hr, differentials take about an hour for 50 gb (with verification).