Backup Situation Questions (Opinions)

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TechieSooner

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Been thinking a bit about this recently just wanted some input on this.

On our server, it is an SBS 2003. So it is the DC, file storage, email, everything.

Right now, every day about 4PM, I have TrueImage run. It runs and backs up to an external hard drive, that when I leave for the day (5PM or so) I can take it with me the same day. Looking at changing that schedule to run at night though.

Now my question is how good of a backup strategy and what would you change.

The server is an HP (don't have model or anything- I didn't order it, this was before my time). Has RAID5 with a hot spare HDDs, just about the only failover bit on it.

I built a pretty cheap "backup" server from stuff out of Newegg. Got an Athlon X2 6000+ CPU, 2GB RAM, and a single hard drive that's the same size as the partitions (500GB) in the RAID5 array. Stuck it all in a media center case- due to the size being relatively small and easy to move around.

TrueImage Universal Restore should restore to different hardware just fine (having some issues at the moment- haven't worked them out yet).

Any issues with this?
Ideally if the main server goes down for whatever reason, I hope to have a backup up in the same day (if not in several hours).
Really the only thing I think would be an issue is a hardware failure. Just something long enough to overnight a part to get it fixed- so we are looking at 2 days MAX (unless the weekend I may run into an extended time period).
If a software failure, I can restore the image just fine- no problems restoring to different hardware.


I know having two identical servers in a mirror is the ideal way of doing things, but considering I have seen way too many backup situations with other companies FAIL, even if they have a mirror, just don't want to mess with it. That, and cost is very high.

Thanks!
 
I often have customers that call with an emergency that they deleted a file last Tuesday and they need it restored. Just had one of those calls this last week. I had the customer pop in the appropriate tape and I did the restore over a VPN connection to the server.

Do you have multiple backups that go back in time at least a week or so?

The external drive thing is way better than nothing, but IMHO not nearly as good as multiple backups to removable media.
 
Spartacus said:
I often have customers that call with an emergency that they deleted a file last Tuesday and they need it restored. Just had one of those calls this last week. I had the customer pop in the appropriate tape and I did the restore over a VPN connection to the server.

Do you have multiple backups that go back in time at least a week or so?

The external drive thing is way better than nothing, but IMHO not nearly as good as multiple backups to removable media.
Click to expand...

Yup I keep 1 week of data on this server.
Haven't heard anyone need a missing file. I get more of the "I can't find where this file is at" type of issues, in which case is just user problems and I can't tell them where the hell they saved that file off to, when they don't know the name of it or anything.

I actually still run a tape backup. The problem with tapes is they are limited in capacity. If I buy a larger tape, I think it starts getting to the same pricing (or cheaper) as hard drives anyway, plus hard drives are much faster.

Until I get the Universal Restore issues figured out, I still run tape backups too ;)
 
Spartacus said:
I often have customers that call with an emergency that they deleted a file last Tuesday and they need it restored. Just had one of those calls this last week. I had the customer pop in the appropriate tape and I did the restore over a VPN connection to the server.

Do you have multiple backups that go back in time at least a week or so?

The external drive thing is way better than nothing, but IMHO not nearly as good as multiple backups to removable media.
Click to expand...

Thats why you should spend the extra 10-15% disk space on Volume Shadow Copy.

It very easy to walk the user through restoring their data if they have never done it before.
 
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