Server backup hardware advice (tape drives?)

Sparky1234

Sparky1234

Sparky1234

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18 Oct 2002
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Hi there everyone. I could use some advice on backup solutions for our work server. The server currently runs 3*73gb SCSI drives in RAID 5, one 20gb or so partition for Windows, and a second partition for use as a general filestore. We use a DAT24 tape to backup the files from the server (SQL database, pictures, presentations, and general office documents) on a nightly basis, keeping backups off site and rotating through the tapes on a fortnightly basis.

This solution has worked very well for us, with the tapes stored off site, and having multiple backups with the ability to restore older files - but we have reached a point where the 24gb tapes cannot hold all the information from the server. Now, we have considered splitting the backups over multiple tapes, or to backup certain pieces of data on different evenings, but I think it would be a much better idea to just purchase a new backup solution.

Size wise, I guess we would be looking for something at least 50gb in capacity. I guess it would be nice to get something large enough that we would require an upgrade to the server before we needed to upgrade the backup device (i.e., something around the 100gb mark).

Are tape drives sill a good solution? If so, what type/make/format should we be looking for? If not, what are the alternatives?

Thanks in advance for any help with this matter.
 
Hi Sparky,

I suggest using LTO3 Tapes and get yourself a IBM (or similiar) SCSI LTO tape drive. Each tape will hold 400GB (uncompressed) or 800GB (compressed). LTO2 and LT01 tapes are also available but are being replaced by the LT03 format, so avoid these if you can help it.

You should also consider a tape library. Although this will increase the cost considerably it means you doNt have to change the tapes every day and can load up one or two weeks worth of backups :) depending on size.

Using Backup Exec you should get about 1000GBmin. If your using windows 2003 server make sure you disable the removeable media service as this just slows the performance down badly. Also dont run virus software on a backup server if you can avoid it, scans each file on read and if you verify the backup it scans the whole lot again. Will take you in excess of 10Hours to do 120GB!!!

I setup this solution at work and backup in excess of 270GB a night. My current compression ratio is 1:43.

Tape costs around £20-£25 a tape and tape drive cost vary.

That should furture proof your backup stratergy. Backing up to tape is still the best solution for business however I have heard of some companies using DVD but this wouldnt work for large backups. HD-DVD might provided a larger capacity in the future but this is still some way off from production.

Alf4
 
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really depends on how much your rate of data change per day is, what your windows are, and your scheduling.

An autoloader/library are handy to have - but expensive.

if you google "tape automation sizing" - you'll find something which will help you :)

and BackupExec is especially good - 11d is very handy.

To answer your question more broadly - the market is split in two - backup to disc (using cheap SATA on an iSCSI/FC backend) or backup to tape. Both have their benefits, both have their shortfalls.
 
Id go the LT03 route.
Get a standalone drive and tapes you can replicate your existing strategy easily so no major changes.
Take the opportunity to upgrade to latest Backup Exec at the same time to 11d as said above, well worth it.

For your data sizes LTO3 will cope for quite some time...the other question is how fast is your data growing? If its static then you may be able to get away with a 73GB DAT drive again for quite some time depending on the rate of growth.
 
you didn't mention it explicitly, so I'm wondering why you are not using differential tape backup ? :confused:
A DAT24 would be still usable in that situation


a fortnightly rotation is a bit quick IMHO, a month would be better
I find most users create/delete stuff, but then not realise for a week or so. Having more tapes to fall back on can help recover the data before it gets overwritten.

a couple of 300Gb SATA drives would let you store a weeks worth of full backups - and only for about £100 - bargain.

buying a new drive (and a new set of tapes) is nice, but may not be essential at this point.



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Alf4 said:
You should also consider a tape library. Although this will increase the cost considerably it means you doNt have to change the tapes every day and can load up one or two weeks worth of backups :)
Click to expand...
part of the point of doing tape backups, is that every day, you take the tape >out< of the drive and put it in an off-site firesafe.

That way the company doesn't go bankrupt if the server room happens to burn down... ;)


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bitslice said:
part of the point of doing tape backups, is that every day, you take the tape >out< of the drive and put it in an off-site firesafe.

That way the company doesn't go bankrupt if the server room happens to burn down... ;)


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Click to expand...

Sorry, we have a firesafe for tapes on site to hold a weeks worth of tapes. This means we dont have to run off site to get a tape if the restore is recent. We normaly send tapes off every week to off site storage.

Alf
 
Ah, sorry, I thought you were leaving the previous days backups in the tape drive. :)

(offsite storage) -- that's partly why I started doing secondary backups to hard disk, I got fed up of getting the tapes out of the safe. Now most restores come direct off disk and I rarely have to go find the correct tape.


Handy for those "blonde moments":

"can you tell me when you deleted the file ?"
"umm, sometime in November, maybe October, no wait September I think"
"sigh..."




...I don't suppose the OP is coming back then ?
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LoL I know what your saying. Thankfully we use replication to copy the data across the WAN to our centralised backup server where backup exec (11d) does the dirty. Meaning I can restore from disk if its happened within the last 12hours.

Alf
 
Alf4 said:
LoL I know what your saying. Thankfully we use replication to copy the data across the WAN to our centralised backup server where backup exec (11d) does the dirty. Meaning I can restore from disk if its happened within the last 12hours.

Alf
Click to expand...

yep - this is the only real solution i recommend - pulling data across onto a centralised backup, possibly replicate it off onto a mirrored site. Commvault Galaxy can do some very handy things in this arena.
 
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