Backup to Disk

[567765]

til now i've only had tape based backup systems.
but what about "backup to disk"?

is it working just like a tape based setup, overwriting the older jobs?

and what about compressing, does it even?
perhaps someone could give me an example with 200gb full backup, monday - friday...

 

[BaronSamedi]

I'm presently implementing a Veritas backup to disk procedure. If you want any tips, please ask. I've been finding it an interesting experience compared to previous tape backup systems I've implemented.

One word for unwary - make sure you have a good working interface between your server and your backup disk! I inherited this system and my predecessor had decided to use USB1. The external drive case he'd used was a cheap POS. The backup jobs kept overflowing the buffer and the disk would disappear in the middle of a backup.

I replaced the external disk case and cable and it appears to be working at the moment (will see with a BIG backup job this weekend though). If it falls over, I plan to go to Firewire.

As far as compression is concerned, I'm managing to fit 200+ GB onto a 120 GB disk with loads of space to spare. I'm presently using "append - overwrite" settings, so we'll see how long it works.

I use one disk for the weekdays Mon-Thurs (effectively an incremental backup). One disk for weekends (effectively doing a complete backup) and another disk for Monthly backups (again effectively a complete backup).

I'm presently in the second week of implementation and as I've related, still working through the problems as they present.

 

[Flyfisher65]

BaronSamedi, I am interested in what type of issues that you have found. Could you please post what you have ran into. Also, are you using just backup to disk now, or a combination of tape and disk backups? What type of server are you using to do the backups?

Thanks in advance.

 

[BaronSamedi]

Sorry, been a little too busy to post.

I am using just back up to disk at the moment. The biggest problem, as I already mentioned, I have run into is that Backup Exec appears to overwhelm the USB buffer and literally, the disk just disappears as far as the system is concerned.

The only way it seems to recover from this is to cancel the job or have the system cancel it. You then either have to reboot the disk by switching it off and on, if it hasn't been running too long or as an emergency, reboot the Server (not a good idea from a user perspective).

I've now installed a firewire card in the server and a new external disk enclosure with a firewire interface. However, the problem seems to still occur and if anything, that interface appears even flakier than the USB one.

As an alternative, I've wondering if it would be worthwhile backing up to an internal disk and then copy the backup files to the external disk. This is a bit of double handling but I'm hoping it will at least leave me with a complete backup!

I'm presently running Windows 2003 server, Backup Exec 9.1. The server itself is something my predecessor decided to cobble together out of bits and pieces (this bloke took three months to build this POS and as he was a toolmaker in an small engineering works, made his own case, disk mounting blocks and ventilation system!), essentially its a P4 3 Ghz system with 2 MB of RAM, Serial ATA disks, Promise RAID card. It works, but only just as I'm finding out.

 

[Nyx57]

baron: please read my thread and tell me if you can provide me with any feedback. feel free to email me as well, i would appreciate any comments or ideas you may have.Thanks

(also i noticed you talking about using usb and firewire drives, assuming you want to take them offsite or whatnot, but whynot just use removable trays? i mean the disk when in the tray will still be internal therefor getting the speed benefit, and when your done just take it out, or throw another one in?)

 

[Nyx57]

Forgot the link for you regarding the above post:

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=917523

 

[BaronSamedi]

The reason why I'm using a firewire/usb drive is because yes, I want to be able to store them off site. I'm using a firewire/usb housing, coupled with removable trays. All I have to do so is halt the usb/firewire interface, turn off the external enclosure and then I'm able to remove the tray. It allows a standard, cheap EIDE disk to be used.

If I just used the trays, I'd have to halt the server before I could remove the disk trays. Not terribly popular, as it would require a half hour shut down to do so.

I've presently at the point though, where I think I'll need a serious rethink of how I'm doing this. I can get the daily backup to work. I cannot get the weekly backups to work though. For some reason they hang on the weekend. 'causes the server to hang until I get in on Monday as well, again, not popular. It appears to be a problem associated with file access for the root directory of the root/boot disk.

 

[Davetoo]

I built a server using a SATA 10 RAID setup (4x300GB) with two SATA RAID 1 internal drives for the OS. Cost just under $2000 for everything plus software (Veritas 9.1, two open files, one exchange and four remote server licenses) of about $1500.

I backup everything to the RAID 10 drives using differentials each night Mon-Thu, then do a full backup on Friday. On Thursday I backup the Wednesday diffy to tape and take off site. On Saturday I backup the Friday full to tape and take off site.

I'm still working out the kinks (be careful, if you use diffy's, be sure to use the same backup list as your full backup or else the diffy won't be right).

Before I used CA and backed up everything to tape each night. Backup job was taking over nine hours. Now a full backup takes about six, diffys running about 20 minutes each night, Exchange takes about an hour and a half (I do a full backup of the Exchange each night, not mailboxes, just the IS).

Arcserve is great if you have a bunch of servers. For the seven or so that I have the Veritas is much easier to work with.

I'm Certifiable, not certified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[muddyjohn]

i ran into problems where we used the disk to disk backups and then would burn those files to tape. When we try to recover those files it took twice as long, only to find out they would not recover. Be VERY careful if burning your d2d to tape.

Hold on! This could Hurt! I ain't certified by Microsoft!

Thanks

 

[infogeek]

muddyjohn - can you elaborate on the problems you had backing up the D2D files to tape? What problems did you have trying to restore files? What solutions were you able to find to the problems you encountered?

Thx for any info!

 

[MysticRick]

BaronSamedi, what are your device settings?

I am using an external USB drive to store my backups as a Removeable Backup-to-disk device.

My Maximum size for Backup-to-disk files is set to 51200MB.

Are you trying to backup the entire server as one huge file? If so this might be your problem. When I tried to have a huge Backup-to-disk file I encountered similar problems.

- Rick