Small Biz Backup

dave-lew99 · 2 Dec 2011 at 17:03

I'm in the process of looking at our backup system and seeing what we can do (on a budget) to improve the process.

We have 3Tb's of filestore plus around 20gb of critical data from other systems (email and so on).

At the moment I do offsite backups on DVDs, but this has become many DVDs and doesn't cover all data.

The solution i'm considering is having 2 or 3 3Tb USB/eSATA HDDs and just rotating them offsite.

The budget for tape is really out unfortunately, although in the office we all agree that would be the preferred way.

As for software i currently use a free file sync tool, since nightlies are done to the filestore of the critical data, i can just backup all of that.

Some suggestions would be useful on that front and i guess what i'm really asking, are portable HDs suitable for this task? If we have 2 or 3 of them rotated and backed up weekly then that should cover us. Encryption can be covered by True Crypt.

dave-lew99 · 2 Dec 2011 at 18:58

Ah maybe I wasn't very clear, only the filestore requires backing up - a 3Tb ZFS RAID-Z2 array on OpenSolaris, all the servers have backup scripts which backup to this.

The missing link is backing up the filestore which is currently accessed over samba. We also have a machine we can easily use to run backups with (Windows OS at the moment, but I could run backup software in a Linux VM if required)

dave-lew99 · 4 Dec 2011 at 11:10

That could be an option, initial sync would have to be performed on site due to the large amount of data.

We do occasionally add very large amounts of data which would take more than an evening to upload. Capital cost wise it's about the same as a couple of external disks, but operational costs begin to stack up - it's one thing for someone to take a disk home, it's another to ask them to use up their internet connection and electricity to run a backup, it's not like we have another office to go to.

It's also less secure than having an offline backup, rsync may be the way to go in terms of software though. Ideally it would be simple enough for none-technical staff to run, however that is probably a bit of a fantasy!

dave-lew99 · 4 Dec 2011 at 20:00

Well it's mostly things like theft, fire, flood etc.

In terms of restoration of service, as a company of 7 people using mostly FOSS then if it came to the crunch we could run the business on a desktop from PC world with a handful of VMs, while squatting in someone's (e.g. a Director's) garage. It wouldn't be pretty, but it would work.

Restoring a handful of linux mailboxes and an SVN repository really is quite trivial, all configs are regularly backed up too, mostly for reference. (This constitutes the majority of the critical data)

In terms of the 3Tb's of filestore - it's just that, files, in the event of a disaster we could plug in an external HD and have access to the files we need.

I think its clear, the cheapest, simplest solution is 2 or 3 external disks, backed up offsite on a weekly basis. 3 to ensure there are 2 full copies offsite at any one time, with the oldest data being 3 weeks.

BRS: I'm not sure how good it would be to store all that data on S3 - in the event of a disaster we'd have to download it all somewhere, potentially in a temporary office. Our current place only has ADSL, simply because we have no need for anything more (and as we all know, the next step up on the internet ladder is rather a large one).

dave-lew99 · 4 Dec 2011 at 20:40

bigredshark said:
My advice (unhelpful as it is) is that they better consider whether they need to create huge quantities of data and tier their storage to divide what they need immediately, what they need sometime and what they don't need after a complete disaster. After a disaster you need your communications systems and client details really quickly but you don't need your accounting system back online on day one, billing people will wait. Too few small business have done that kind of analysis.

That's not at all unhelpful, very wise words - and you're right, few people even mention it, let alone recommend it.

A large proportion of our filestore is legacy data or data recordings and so on - very little of which is actually important, but useful nonetheless. The 'critical' data comprises of email, source code, customer info and so on.

With all bar one member of staff living less than 20 minutes away and most having laptops, having that data (if on an external disk) would mean a quick and largely cheap re-location. In terms of comms, any internet connection will do (as i said we run on ADSL, so anyone's home connection would be fine) and for voice we can just put on a BT re-direct to another number.

Perhaps the way would be a largely static backup of that none-essential data, plus a daily/weekly backup on some other media of the important stuff - having it all right at your fingertips without requiring expensive software or an internet connection has a lot of value, it makes restoration of service that bit easier.

If I was really pressed and I was unable to spend any money whatsoever, I am fairly confident I could have an equivalent set of systems up and running within a day.