Best way for me to setup my backup scheme?

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Deleted member 19858

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There are a few variables to this backup scheme so I need some suggestions.

I used to work where my server is located but have since moved to another job and continue to use their T1 that I pay part of. The only time I am ever able to go down there is during the weekend. The people who work there have offered to switch the tapes for me but I don't want to be a huge inconvenience.

Anyways I have a small DDS1 tape drive which will be able to hold my IIS, SQL, and Exchange until I need more storage. I am using BackupExec 9.1 to back everything up and it would be best to have a weeks worth of individual backups.

The way I would do it if I was there everyday is to do a full backup of each daily to tape and switch the tapes ever day. I would then probably just overwrite the Friday tape with Saturday and Sunday. Or I could backup Saturday and Sunday a RAID 1 hard drive.

So basically I think they could change the tape everyday but 1 time a week might be better for them, any suggestions?
 
If your running R1 I really don't see any point in using the tape daily. I would run a daily to disk and a weekly to tape.
 
That is also a good option since I have my RAID1 setup I would have to have something pretty bad happen to lose data. I guess as long as I have 1 tape off site that has a weekly backup even if there was some disaster I would be able to pretty much recover if the hardware was destroyed.
 
ive never done enterprise backup, but I do like the idea of just having a cheap PATA drive in there to back up daily to, and then backing up a permaback to a DVDR. Its one reason I got my DVDRW drive... ive backed up most of my files onto them and even the oldest backs I still have access too, back when I used CDRs instead of DVDRs. I even have backups of things like directx 6 installs and my DOS 6.22 disks still.

BTW snow why havent you messaged me lately? I miss talking with you :(
 
Well even backing up everything I am doing it only comes out to a little over 2GB at this time so DDS1 tapes will be much cheaper and reusable compared to DVDs. I think that I am going to do the daily backups to disk and weekly to tape which I would keep off site.

Sorry I haven't gotten back to you in a while, I have been working with my main site and life so I don't have time to work on that networking project. If I am going to do it, I am going to do it right I don't want to put half effort in and have it be junk.
 
there's always DVD+RW disks... written to 1000 times or so?

Sorry I just do NOT trust tapes, ive had backup restores fail because of data errors way too many times, and I DO know how to handle the tapes.

You could just drop me a line once in a while, yaknow... doesnt take much time to do that :(
 
jaqie said:
Sorry I just do NOT trust tapes, ive had backup restores fail because of data errors way too many times, and I DO know how to handle the tapes.
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I'm not saying it is your excuse but, that sounds like a missed backup excuse ;)

I have been using tapes for 8 years now and have been lucky enough to never loose any data . I've always done a compare after the backup to ensure it is able to read from the tape though. As many of us do, we run our backups at night so we won't even see a problem until the next day (at which point your a nervous wreck that some VP is going to loose a presentation he just spent all day on or something). The only other insurance you can really give yourself is to run the backups to disk and only then copy them to tape. That is if they foot the bill for enough disk space (which rarely happens UNTIL a VP looses data lol).

In most enterprise situations tape is your only option. It is the only media proven to stand the test of time (many companies require data to be store indefinitely). Like anything else however, it all depends on your own personal experiences.

For the DB's here (work) we run a nightly to tape which is restored to the backup server(s) the next day. Many of the other systems simply use ftp to copy backups to a NAS on their segment. We also rotate a weekly/monthly backup set.

For our web sites (personal-work) I run a nightly/weekly/monthly which is then copied to a slave drive every night/week/month. Then once a week the 20gb or so of data is sftp'd to another box just incase. It's just unfortunate that it is too big for the free NAS space TP offers :(

k1pp3r said:
Fill this up and don't change a tape for the next 10 years or so
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It's amazing how much data some of these companies accumulate.. Just 100's of TBs of data in their live systems alone.
 
what are you asking for? if they can change the tapes then where is the problem?
 
UnderLoK said:
It's amazing how much data some of these companies accumulate.. Just 100's of TBs of data in their live systems alone.
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Your not kidding, last time i was up at sungard a company had just brought in a new 3par SAN that would store 1000 TB (yes one thousand), that thing was pretty huge if you ask me!!!!
 
They can change tapes however I feel uneasy having someone besides myself deal with this in case there is a problem and for reliability.

Another option I am thinking of is do a daily backup to the RAID1 drive and then download the backup to my house weekly. That way I do not have to deal with tapes and get daily backups and have a weekly backup off site.

I could also download the daily backups so the data is always up to date and off site but I don't think for my situation that is a big deal. Even If I downloaded the weekly backup on Sunday and a disaster happened the next Saturday I would lose 6 days of data. Losing that email WOULD suck but if I do offline mail I would have a copy at home anyways. As far as other data that would potentially be lost we are talking about forums, news, and article postings... All of which would not be the biggest concern of mine if all my hardware was destroyed.
 
SnowPunk98 said:
They can change tapes however I feel uneasy having someone besides myself deal with this in case there is a problem and for reliability.

Another option I am thinking of is do a daily backup to the RAID1 drive and then download the backup to my house weekly. That way I do not have to deal with tapes and get daily backups and have a weekly backup off site.

I could also download the daily backups so the data is always up to date and off site but I don't think for my situation that is a big deal. Even If I downloaded the weekly backup on Sunday and a disaster happened the next Saturday I would lose 6 days of data. Losing that email WOULD suck but if I do offline mail I would have a copy at home anyways. As far as other data that would potentially be lost we are talking about forums, news, and article postings... All of which would not be the biggest concern of mine if all my hardware was destroyed.
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what security level is their data? you really want to transfer company data of a public line? We have most our clients swap their own tapes. I would just setup TS in remote admin mode 9if windows) and check the log daily to make sure it backed up and to thr correct media. not that big of a deal really.
 
Its all my data no client. I am also trying to save money by not buying the tapes that would be needed for swapping. I would need 5 for the daily and a few extra (one for weekly) and some just in case one goes bad + a cleaning. I am pretty lacking on the funding so I was thinking downloading ti would be a good alternative.
 
get another raid1 array, and rsync it over ipsec. use the option to make hard links if the files are the same, and then you'll have incremental backups, in case you delete a file. raid 1 is fine, but you still need backup.
 
I could create a VPN to my server and transfer the backup over that way. That would ensure the data was encrypted during transmission.
 
I like the raid / offsite over internet/vpn idea a lot better then tape.

Also, The tape drives I used were consumer level drives, IDE colorado T3000 to T8000 and various older ones if I remember correctly.
 
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