Like the title states, we are still using tapes to back up our unix app/e-mail server. What other viable backup method is there? The CFO likes the idea of being able to take tapes out of the building. Is there some type of SATA backup solution where I can get 10 drives for a 2 week rotation and hot swap the appropriate drive for the nightly backup? Is this even the best solution?
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I need to get rid of tapes and move into 2007
- Thread starter Sasiki
- Start date
If you're going the sata route you're going to have to home brew most of it. I've been thinking about going this route but it's for about 200-800gigs of data that is backed up weekly.
Find a sata raid card that has a cli (command line interface) set it up so that when a drive is inserted it will create it as pass through drive, then just set your backup software to hit that drive, or multiple drives. Guessing 4 drives would be more than enough.... you might not even need a raid card with cli you could possibly do it with the sata slots on the mobo. Areca has a nice cli interface that i would recommend. Prices are hard drives are going well below the price of tapes (unless i'm using the wrong kind of tapes) but it's like 10bucks for a 36gig tape, 200 gig drives should start hitting that price point in a year or so (60$ or so). Also the damn tape drives are pretty hefty price and they're slow.
Find a sata raid card that has a cli (command line interface) set it up so that when a drive is inserted it will create it as pass through drive, then just set your backup software to hit that drive, or multiple drives. Guessing 4 drives would be more than enough.... you might not even need a raid card with cli you could possibly do it with the sata slots on the mobo. Areca has a nice cli interface that i would recommend. Prices are hard drives are going well below the price of tapes (unless i'm using the wrong kind of tapes) but it's like 10bucks for a 36gig tape, 200 gig drives should start hitting that price point in a year or so (60$ or so). Also the damn tape drives are pretty hefty price and they're slow.
MikeRfactor
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If you have a tape drive sized to fit your data needs, then there is no real good reason to change it.
B2D (backup to disk) exists, does work, but tapes are still very much relevant in 2007.
B2D advantages are lower costs, and ease of upgrade; with tape you have to buy new, expensive tape drive and new expensive tapes to handle more data. Often the cost of new tapes alone are about 75% the cost of HDDs of the same or larger size, never mind the $1000-6000 cost of the new tape drive. Controller and cable expenses are low, and the drives are warrantied for 5yrs, and don't wear out with repeated use as a tape does, resulting in lower ongoing hardware costs also.
Speed is about even depending on gear used, but the newer high end tape drives edge out B2D currently, but not by much, and not worth the cost premium IMO.
B2D is faster to recover from (no tape seek), and easier to encrypt to (truecrypt). Also if you're in a small shop and have a server/tape drive go bad, and need to get your data, you can always get it from any PC while using a HDD, not so with a tape.
On the flip side the HDDs are larger and heavier than tapes, more susceptible to damage in transit (ESD, shock, exposed circuit boards and connectors), and don't have the distinction of being rated for 5-10-15-20-etc years of data retention. As a system there is no real packaged and supported setup (controller, cables, internal/external housing, drives, caddies, external transport protection), and thus has to be self selected, assembled, and supported. To use B2D requires new versions of the common commercial backup apps, and can be more complicated to configure, and often even require some custom scripts and such to mount and unmount drives properly. Other issues are not having true-hot-swap capability somewhere along the line, controller compatibility issues, and OS crashes/lockups.
So it's a mixed bag, 6 of one, half-dozen of another; pick what works best for the situation.
B2D (backup to disk) exists, does work, but tapes are still very much relevant in 2007.
B2D advantages are lower costs, and ease of upgrade; with tape you have to buy new, expensive tape drive and new expensive tapes to handle more data. Often the cost of new tapes alone are about 75% the cost of HDDs of the same or larger size, never mind the $1000-6000 cost of the new tape drive. Controller and cable expenses are low, and the drives are warrantied for 5yrs, and don't wear out with repeated use as a tape does, resulting in lower ongoing hardware costs also.
Speed is about even depending on gear used, but the newer high end tape drives edge out B2D currently, but not by much, and not worth the cost premium IMO.
B2D is faster to recover from (no tape seek), and easier to encrypt to (truecrypt). Also if you're in a small shop and have a server/tape drive go bad, and need to get your data, you can always get it from any PC while using a HDD, not so with a tape.
On the flip side the HDDs are larger and heavier than tapes, more susceptible to damage in transit (ESD, shock, exposed circuit boards and connectors), and don't have the distinction of being rated for 5-10-15-20-etc years of data retention. As a system there is no real packaged and supported setup (controller, cables, internal/external housing, drives, caddies, external transport protection), and thus has to be self selected, assembled, and supported. To use B2D requires new versions of the common commercial backup apps, and can be more complicated to configure, and often even require some custom scripts and such to mount and unmount drives properly. Other issues are not having true-hot-swap capability somewhere along the line, controller compatibility issues, and OS crashes/lockups.
So it's a mixed bag, 6 of one, half-dozen of another; pick what works best for the situation.
nitrobass24
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If you have a working tape drive solution why would you switch to sata hot-swap that you would pretty much have to design yourself, is not proven and then the sata drives that you take home are bigger than the tapes. I just dont see the improvement here?? Why spend the money on this if your not going to get any improvement. My clients ask me the best way to back up their systems in a form that they can take out of a building and i always suggest tape drives, there proven and reliable...Dell, IBM, HP all still put tape drives in their systems for a reason. Dont waste money on something like this, it could be spent better elsewhere.
swatbat
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Tapes are still the best way to go. Offsite backups over the internet are slow compaired to something onsite and not a good option in many cases for huge amounts of data. Not sure how much you are backing up but I'll guess it is a few gigs worth no?
You can use sata drives in hot swap bays but really the bays and connectors on them are not designed for that many swaps most of the time. You can buy removable hard drive backups designed for this though. USB drives are another option but I've seen someone zap a server with static more then once connecting and dissconnecting one.
If you are worried about the tape driving failing or something and that being your only backup then maybe look into using b2d to back up the server to another machine say once a week or something. If you really want have it do that backup to an external usb drive hooked to the other machine and swap them every so often. At this point you are really getting into overkill for most setups.
You can use sata drives in hot swap bays but really the bays and connectors on them are not designed for that many swaps most of the time. You can buy removable hard drive backups designed for this though. USB drives are another option but I've seen someone zap a server with static more then once connecting and dissconnecting one.
If you are worried about the tape driving failing or something and that being your only backup then maybe look into using b2d to back up the server to another machine say once a week or something. If you really want have it do that backup to an external usb drive hooked to the other machine and swap them every so often. At this point you are really getting into overkill for most setups.
Cobalt2112
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We used to use an IBM Shark SAN and recently moved to EMC. We still use tape for off-site backups. We use IBM 3590E tapes.
MikeRfactor
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ieeeieeee... you should restore something off tape periodically to ensure things are working correct, but ee gads, you at a minimum should do it at least once so you know how and that it at least works right now. You never want the first time you test a backup system to be when you need it to work...
What I meant when I said that we've never had to is that we have never "had" to. It has been done before, but not in a time of need. Thank you for looking out though =)
Everything that MikeRfactor said is relevant. I work in the backup area daily. SATA hot swap is NOT something I see often if at all. Ther are easier ways to getting the data off site.
B2D has two functions that I see commonly
1.) Creates a fast backup and restore staging ground. Customer keep a few weeks of backups on Disk, the rest to tape.
2.) Complete replacement of tape with disk.
Option 1 is the most common. Option 2 is common with companies who you see in the press having lost tapes and got fines or just embarassed.
I'm an EMC pimp. If we look at the EMC disk libraries they can scale up to around 360-370 TB usable (uncompressed).
That's using 500GB drives. Once the 750GB and 1TB drives become more common you can see that scaling massively.
Add to that Raid 5 protection, fast restore, fast backup (although a good tape library with multiplexing could give it a run for its money).
The Main benefit (and my fav) is the fact that the disk library will act like a tape library. On it you tell it what tape library you want it to be, home many drives to create, how many tapes and it'll pretent to be one. No binding of luns or management.
Anyway, what many companies do is this = Buy two Disk libraries. Keep a month worth of backup on it. Replicate the libraries accross a link. Backup to tape on the DR side and ship tapes to a third location.
This scaled back operation is the most commonly seen engagement
B2D has two functions that I see commonly
1.) Creates a fast backup and restore staging ground. Customer keep a few weeks of backups on Disk, the rest to tape.
2.) Complete replacement of tape with disk.
Option 1 is the most common. Option 2 is common with companies who you see in the press having lost tapes and got fines or just embarassed.
I'm an EMC pimp. If we look at the EMC disk libraries they can scale up to around 360-370 TB usable (uncompressed).
That's using 500GB drives. Once the 750GB and 1TB drives become more common you can see that scaling massively.
Add to that Raid 5 protection, fast restore, fast backup (although a good tape library with multiplexing could give it a run for its money).
The Main benefit (and my fav) is the fact that the disk library will act like a tape library. On it you tell it what tape library you want it to be, home many drives to create, how many tapes and it'll pretent to be one. No binding of luns or management.
Anyway, what many companies do is this = Buy two Disk libraries. Keep a month worth of backup on it. Replicate the libraries accross a link. Backup to tape on the DR side and ship tapes to a third location.
This scaled back operation is the most commonly seen engagement