Tape BackUp v External Hard Drive BackUp?

svan

svan

svan

Associate
Joined
21 Jan 2003
Posts
496
Location
Surrey
Dear All,

Our LTO2 200/400 internal backup drive has gone **** and the cost of a replacement is shocking :eek:

We used Backup Exec 10d.

1. What are the main advantges of tape over external HDD backup?

2. If we use ext HDD, whats is the best approach?

3. Is Backup Exec 10d upto the job of backing up to Ext HDD's

Thanks for any help and assistance you can give.

Cheers

svan
 
1. What are the main advantges of tape over external HDD backup?
Archiving. Tapes can be used to back up daily, weekly, monthly etc. all dependent on amount of tapes. An LTO tape is about £22.00 each and is still less than a HDD.

2. If we use ext HDD, whats is the best approach?
Use Symantec System Recovery and backup a weeks worth of incremental's to HDD and then swap the drives over. Keep at least 3 with one off site at any one time.

3. Is Backup Exec 10d upto the job of backing up to Ext HDD's
Yes, but I wouldn't. Use System Recovery for restoration of the system state and automatic conversion to a VM.

An LTO 3 drive should be about £800. I would struggle to get an LTO 2 these days.

Asp.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for your help.

I have sourced some new LTO2's and will buy a replacement. They don't use the full 400GB atm

I will look at System Recovery, but do currently backup system state. I use Acronis at home, so might see what offering they have for servers, as i'm familiar with it.

Just out of interest, with System recover, can your back up to a machine of different hardware?

oh and do LTO3 use the same tape sizes at LTO2's?

Thanks



svan
 
LTO is backwards compatible as far as reading goes.

LTO-4 can read LTO-3 tapes.
LTO-3 can read LTO-2 tapes.

You get the idea :)
 
The published standard for backwards compatibility on LTO is read 2 previous generations and write 1, so:

LTO5 drives can read 3's 4's and 5 tapes and write to 5's and 4 tapes
LTO4 drives can read 2's 3's and 4 tapes and write to 4's and 3 tapes etc
 
How much you back up and how often, if its small then I'd suggest renting out a cloud server for backups, so much easier than daily tapes that might fail. Pity my company has such large backups, ****ing tapes :( haha
 
Jakeee said:
How much you back up and how often, if its small then I'd suggest renting out a cloud server for backups, so much easier than daily tapes that might fail. Pity my company has such large backups, ****ing tapes :( haha
Click to expand...

They have about 350GB of data, is it worth using a cloud?.. Can anyone recommend any good companies?

Many thanks

svan
 
Just out of interest, with System recover, can your back up to a machine of different hardware?

Yes, it does....any hardware with similar performance and also to a VM.
 
aspirin said:
Just out of interest, with System recover, can your back up to a machine of different hardware?

Yes, it does....any hardware with similar performance and also to a VM.
Click to expand...

Yes, No and Maybe.

No - You cannot dump a system state recovery onto different hardware.

Yes it can be done - With the right implementation and software.

Maybe - It's a beast of a task. You implement something which advertises it can do it. You test it. You test it lots.

As for using External HDDs for backups... Just don't. To be quite frank it's a cheap solution....for good reason. Tape is true and tested and resilient. How much is your data worth?

If the answer is 50 quid, use HDDs. But really ~1 grand to safeguard all of your business data for the lifetime of that tape drive? Worth it in most cases.
 
Last edited:
FWIW, I have never got on with BackupExec using B2D to HDs or removable media eg Rev drives.

RDX seems to get some momentum as an alternative to tape - have you looked at that? You can get 1TB cartridges but they aren't cheap.
 
Sin_Chase said
Yes, No and Maybe.

No - You cannot dump a system state recovery onto different hardware.

Yes it can be done - With the right implementation and software.

Maybe - It's a beast of a task. You implement something which advertises it can do it. You test it. You test it lots.

As for using External HDDs for backups... Just don't. To be quite frank it's a cheap solution....for good reason. Tape is true and tested and resilient. How much is your data worth?

I'm sorry but you are completely wrong. We have tested this time and time again in the workshop. We backed up a SAS based SBS Server and recovered to an SATA workstation. We were so impressed that we then backed that server up and restored to a complete load of junk we had....and it worked again. We then created a VM from this back up and loaded onto the VM server....and it worked again.
It isn't difficult. You boot from DVD and then recover from external HDD and then use the additional drivers on the DVD to supplement what is missing.

Read:
http://www.symantec.com/business/system-recovery-server-edition

@ Chri5. I agree, but Back up 2010 is better for disk backups. We have to use this for D2D deplication devices.
 
Last edited:
aspirin said:
Sin_Chase said
Yes, No and Maybe.

No - You cannot dump a system state recovery onto different hardware.

Yes it can be done - With the right implementation and software.

Maybe - It's a beast of a task. You implement something which advertises it can do it. You test it. You test it lots.

As for using External HDDs for backups... Just don't. To be quite frank it's a cheap solution....for good reason. Tape is true and tested and resilient. How much is your data worth?

I'm sorry but you are completely wrong. We have tested this time and time again in the workshop. We backed up a SAS based SBS Server and recovered to an SATA workstation. We were so impressed that we then backed that server up and restored to a complete load of junk we had....and it worked again. We then created a VM from this back up and loaded onto the VM server....and it worked again.
It isn't difficult. You boot from DVD and then recover from external HDD and then use the additional drivers on the DVD to supplement what is missing.

Read:
http://www.symantec.com/business/system-recovery-server-edition

@ Chri5. I agree, but Back up 2010 is better for disk backups. We have to use this for D2D deplication devices.
Click to expand...

You did not read what I wrote. I am not wrong at all. Next time read, but for your benefit:

No - You cannot dump a system state recovery onto different hardware.

You cannot.

Yes it can be done - With the right implementation and software.

Whatever software you are talking about, never used it, don't care to comment on it specifically.

Maybe - It's a beast of a task. You implement something which advertises it can do it. You test it. You test it lots.

ALA - If he is going to use whatever you are suggesting, he should test it thoroughly. He would be an absolute fool to take Symantec's, your's or anyone else's results without testing it for himself, in his environment, under his usage conditions.
 
Sin_Chase said:
You did not read what I wrote. I am not wrong at all. Next time read, but for your benefit:

No - You cannot dump a system state recovery onto different hardware.

You cannot.

Yes it can be done - With the right implementation and software.

Whatever software you are talking about, never used it, don't care to comment on it specifically.

Maybe - It's a beast of a task. You implement something which advertises it can do it. You test it. You test it lots.

ALA - If he is going to use whatever you are suggesting, he should test it thoroughly. He would be an absolute fool to take Symantec's, your's or anyone else's results without testing it for himself, in his environment, under his usage conditions.
Click to expand...

I agree that it should be tested. I was advising of my own test results nothing more.

Asp.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom