I've been building computers for myself, family, small businesses for a while, but today I got my first request for a server-like backup computer, to be networked and used as storage for an office of about a dozen people. I don't really know much about building a server or backup system (are they even synonymous?) so I was wondering if I could get some pointers as to the type of hardware I'm looking for and such. Like, can I just grab a P4, some ddr400, and 4 200GBs in raid 1 and call it a backup system? Or do I need to be looking at xeon/opterons and ecc memory? Functionally, it really only needs to be able to run 24/7 with few to no reboots, and serve ~1GB files with reasonable speeds across a small office network. Any help is appreciated!
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Basic backup system
- Thread starter Ulrezaj
- Start date
RAID is not backup, and backup is not RAID.
They have different uses.
RAID is for uptime in case a drive fails. This is the ONLY thing it protects against, if ANYTHING else fails, or if you get hit by a Virus, or someone accidentally deletes a file they need, then RAID is not of any help.
Backup is a copy of your data made at intervals to recover needed data to a point in time.
Backup is more important than RAID, backup is more expensive than RAID, backup takes more work than RAID.
Backups should include an off site schedule, so that a copy of the data exists in more than one physical location.
As for what Backup solution to use, most common is some form of Tape and Software.
But with only 1GB of data you could look at a DVDrw instead of Tape. For software, make sure you can schedule the job to run when the server will not be in use, and that you have someone to change the media every day. You will need to decide how often you will overwrite your media, and how often to use non overwriteable media for permanent data storage.
I am backing up over 200GB of data every night at my work, with 2 weeks of daily history, a year of monthly, and permanent quarterly storage. Tape is the only reasonable solution for me. For software I use Backup Exec, it is not perfect, but it works. I use an AIT-4 Autoloader for my tape drive.
==>Lazn
They have different uses.
RAID is for uptime in case a drive fails. This is the ONLY thing it protects against, if ANYTHING else fails, or if you get hit by a Virus, or someone accidentally deletes a file they need, then RAID is not of any help.
Backup is a copy of your data made at intervals to recover needed data to a point in time.
Backup is more important than RAID, backup is more expensive than RAID, backup takes more work than RAID.
Backups should include an off site schedule, so that a copy of the data exists in more than one physical location.
As for what Backup solution to use, most common is some form of Tape and Software.
But with only 1GB of data you could look at a DVDrw instead of Tape. For software, make sure you can schedule the job to run when the server will not be in use, and that you have someone to change the media every day. You will need to decide how often you will overwrite your media, and how often to use non overwriteable media for permanent data storage.
I am backing up over 200GB of data every night at my work, with 2 weeks of daily history, a year of monthly, and permanent quarterly storage. Tape is the only reasonable solution for me. For software I use Backup Exec, it is not perfect, but it works. I use an AIT-4 Autoloader for my tape drive.
==>Lazn
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2001
- Messages
- 5,650
My company uses the Iomega REV Drive for backup purposes. We have a PC dedicated to do this backup.
Ulrezaj said:
How much are you looking at spending?
I do recommend buying a server from a company that provides service contracts. (HP proliants start at $599, but I would recommend a Dual Core or Xeon based one)
And RAID 1 is cheap enough, that you might as well do it with SATA Enterprise drives. (Maxline drives, WD RE drives, etc.) I use all SCSI hotswap at my work, but you seem to be on a bit tighter of a budget.
==>Lazn