Best Backup Options? onsite/offsite/onsite and offsite.. nas,tape,etc

[markm75]

I'm currently researching an alternative (larger capacity) backup solution for our environment... We currently require almost 1 TB of storage space by the end of one month of backups (incrementals daily, fulls running at the end of the month).

The way we currently have things: 4 servers, raid5 on the data arrays on each machine, with an internal backup drive on each server, as well as an external backup drive (all SATA/ SATA II). One server has 400gb in backup space, while the others combined with this one total 1.1 TB of space available. The reason for using the external backup drive was to be able to take the backup from each server home at the end of each week as an offsite backup location (vs using a tape system, which would probably be too slow, despite having gigabit speeds or using scsi).

Does anyone have any recommendations on a system setup that would be completely onsite (no offsite backups).. would this be some sort of NAS (connected to the servers via fiber, ethernet, or?).. or a raid array device in a rack that is one big backup (raid 5?)...

Any recommendations on this setup combined with the ability to take backups offsite periodically (are their any tape systems which would have comparable backup speeds to the SATA II's.. IE: currently the maximum full backup we run on one server takes up to 8 hours to complete (360gb)).

Any alternative offsite backup devices than tape or the external harddrives that we currently use?

IE: what are most large organizations using/doing for backups.. or are they even concerned about having an offsite backup these days.

Any info or help would be great.

Thanks

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

Netapp VTL server -> Virtual Tape Library

http://www.netapp.com/products/nearstore/nearstore-vtl.html

kinds rgds,

R.

 

[chgwhat]

I would look at a nas or san tape with lto, current lto2 tapes hold over 400GB and can write up to 80 MB per second.

http://www.lto.org/newsite/html/about_faqs.html

Generation 4
Capacity: 1.6 TB (assuming a 2:1 compression)
Data transfer speed: up to 240 MB/s (assuming a 2:1 compression)

Generation 5
Capacity: 3.2 TB (assuming a 2:1 compression)
Data transfer speed: up to 360 MB/s (assuming a 2:1 compression)

Generation 6
Capacity: 6.4 TB (assuming a 2:1 compression)
Data transfer speed: up to 540 MB/s (assuming a 2:1 compression)

Tony ... aka chgwhat

When in doubt,,, Power out...

 

[markm75]

Thanks for the tips...

I've researched this pretty thoroughly to this point, unless there are other alternatives..

Our budget was to keep things at 10K or less..

So I came up with the idea to build (homemade) a 2003 server, rack mount, with a Pentium D, 512MB ram, SATAII PCI-E raid controller and 5 drives in raid5 for a total of 2 TB (the rack mount server has 8 removable bays). Yes I know the PentiumD isnt as good as say a DualCore2 or better yet an Irwindale Xeon (which most true SANs seem to have), but to keep the budget low this was my solution.. I would think that even with these specs, this "backup server" array would be powerful enough to handle running symantec backup exec and copying data from 4 servers to this one's backup array? The price on this whole server is $2600 or so.. not bad considering most SANs start around $5k and goto an average of $12k?

Connected to this server would be an U320 SCSI Tape Backup Library Loader...

Here are the choices I came up with.. I'm torn between LTO3 and DLT-S4.. LTO3 is 400/800, while DLT-S4 is 800/1600. the LTO3 runs at about 80 mB/s while the S4 is 60 mB/s. There will be an LTO4 in about 6 months, handling 800/1600 and 120 mB/s.. as well as an S5 in 16 months that will do 1600/3200 or so at 120 mB/s or more...

We currently have about 745GB of data for a full backup with all 4 servers combined.. by end of the month doing incrementals this hits 1.1 TB.. My goal was to make this backup solution last at least 3 years.. so the 2TB backup array should do the trick and can be expanded..

Here are the tape library options and the pros/cons (all of these devices will auto goto the next tape as one runs out and will allow for say selecting tapes 1,4 on day1, tape 2,5 day2 etc; they are also 1 drive solutions, with no real benefit if you had 2 drives except if restoring at the same time):

1. Superload3 Dlt-s4 $4700 street

http://www.amatteroffax.com/item.asp?INVID=1318407&SRC=froogle&CKP=ADUHCTGM^D@PAYPA

8 slot library, rackmount, U320; This unit, according to what I've heard, can be upgraded to newer drive technology, however its not easy, you have to ship it back to Quantum and they do the swap (say when the S5 comes out). It is 6.4TB/12.8TB capacity; Tapes avg $82.

2. ExeByte Magnum224 LTO3 $4199 street,

http://www.unistorage.com/unistorage/index.cfm?fuseaction=shop.dspSpecs&part=1669988

(CDW has it for $5100 shipped with a free 12 magazine cart. and 5 free tapes); This unit is 4.8TB/9.6TB, can go from a 1x12 to a 2x24 drive unit. Tapes are an avg of $52. Can simply swap out the drive for a better drive as they come along.

So my delemma is whether to go with the LTO3 library, which is more easily expanded /upgraded to LTO4.. or go with the DLT unit, which will require less tapes essentially, but could be upgraded if really desired.

I'm thinking we'd need about 2 tapes for the DLT and 4 tapes for the LTO, times about 3 to have a rotating weekly offsite set plus a quarterly.. so at least 6 tapes for the DLT and 9 for the LTO....

Another issue is the backup software.. Is Backup Exec the best solution.. does it really require 4 Cals.. one for each server (or a cal for every SQL box and one for every exchange)? I'm assuming I'll be backing up data via network mappings on the backup server.. so I'm not sure why we'd need a cal for these servers, since the backup wont run on them directly.. or does an agent have to go on each server to allow open files to be copied?

I'm also not sure if I should do two seperate backups, one to the HD array server and one to the tape (from the 4 servers) or if I should just backup the HD array to tape.. so a backup inside a backup (slower to restore though).

Anyone have any comments on these units or a better library/HD array option and the best backup software.. Combined these units total around $7500..

 

[LeeMason]

Did you go any further with this? My company BackupsAnywhere and we could provide you with an onsite disk backup solution using a single onsite server (which you could purchase) and using our Online Backup Manager (OBM) software and Replication Server (RPS) software you could backup all of your servers onsite and replicate the whole system offsite to one of our Internet based replication servers. Or if you have a second site (or hosting location) you could have the replication server yourself.

The initial backup will take a while to replication so this could be done locally, and then the replication server moved offsite afterward. After this using our client software on all servers you can perform differential or incremental backups daily to your local OBM server which will automatically be replicated to an offsite RPS server. I believe that we could get below your budget for this type of system.


Lee Mason
Optimal Projects Ltd

http://www.opl.co.uk

http://www.backupsanywhere.com