Can you recommend a NAS device for a small business office? About 7 co

[ITGuyLA]

Can you recommend a NAS device for a small business office? About 7 computers.

Ideally I need a device that can do the following:

(1) Be not extremely expensive
(2) Have RAID-1 (about 2TB hard drives) array
(3) Be able to do scheduled backups from 7 computers (certain folders from each computer which I could manually set in backup configuration, i.e.: “C:\Documents and Settings\john\My Documents”).
(4) Able to have versioning of backups. Lets say I need to recover document file from folder “C:\Documents and Settings\john\My Documents\reports” from 2 weeks before from the computer number 3.
(5) Obviously have gigabit Ethernet


Thank you!

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

I would propose a nas , and a backup server with a tape device / library (LTO4 or so).
First of all, what is your budget ? Before making suggestions that are feasible, it's good to know the big order of budget you are talking about ( 1k / 5k / 10k / ...)

rgds,

R.

NetApp Certified NCDA/NCIE-SAN

 

[ITGuyLA]

Under $1000

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

this is really really low budget. A Lacie NAS can give you at least a nas and backup to ntfs disk (usb attached), but if you want versioning as well, this will become a problem I think...

rgds,

R.

NetApp Certified NCDA/NCIE-SAN

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

another possible solution :

http://www.nasstation.com/products.htm

rgds,

R.

NetApp Certified NCDA/NCIE-SAN

 

[LeeMason]

Have a look at one of the Thecus NAS boxes like the N4100PRO:

http://www.thecus.com/products_over.php?cid=10&pid=77.

I know it comes with some client backup software but not sure of the facilities available within this software.


Lee Mason
Optimal Projects Ltd

http://www.opl.co.uk

http://www.backupsanywhere.com

 

[goombawaho]

I don't think a tape backup system is in his budget for under $1000. Which brings up the question: no matter which NAS you select, how are you going to back it up???

It's not backup itself - it's just storage. To rely on that without backing it up is like a high wire act with no net.

 

[ITGuyLA]

I started working in IT field only recently, so my experience in professional backup solutions is rather limited. I thought that NAS has an OS system which would allow it to connect to certain computers on the network and using administrative level access backup certain folders from those computers. I did not think that I would need to install client side software.

Now, if I understood it correctly, NAS is just a bunch of hard drives with Ethernet adapter (as opposed to simple external USB or eSATA drive)?

Hey, I just had an idea. We have an old Dell Power Edge 1500SC server that is running Windows Server 2000, it acts as a domain controller for the network. It really does not have any other applications. Maybe I could install some sort of “backup server” software and install “backup client” software on the workstations? I could hook an external 2TB USB hard drive to that machine and that could do the job?

Can you recommend a backup software that has a server and client side? Something like mozy but for LAN.

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

And you still want all that in a <1000$ budget ??
The stuff you are actually looking for is a Nas, who is using snapshotting keeping online versions for a certain retention period. Backup done through a media server,backing up data over ndmp towards a library with media changer. (budget for all that stuff, you don't wanna even know )

Some client/server backup softwares : Tivoli Storage Manager,Networker,Commvault,NetBackup

The cheapest solution for you would be :
- a plain server, with RAID whatever
- install win2003, you can use VSS (volume shadow copy service) , allowing for previous versions ( see

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/ar...Server-2003-Volume-Shadow-Copy-Service.html#)

- attach a tape library or a tape drive

Benefits :
- better performance
- good data protection
- possibility to take backups offsite
- restore previous versions of files

rgds,

R.

NetApp Certified NCDA/NCIE-SAN

 

[goombawaho]

Honestly, for a cheap budget, this is what I would do. Buy some type of NAS that fits your budget and use it as you were thinking (to assign rights and share files). Have another computer (not a server) on the network with enough hard drive space in it and do a backup from the NAS to it to serve as a backup "server".

It's not what I would call the professional way of doing it, but it would work. Once you get you NAS running, come back here, tell us what you bought and then we can guide you through setting up a backup on another machine. Even a Windows XP machine with some big hard drives would do and you could use NTBACKUP that comes with it and do like a differential backup 6 nights a week and then a full backup over the weekend.

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

You need to ask yourself this question:How much will an outage of a day / data loss of a day cost the company? Then compare this to the price of the setup you want/need, and present that to your management.I did projects at customers who did not want to invest , and have as low cost as possible.They then had an outage which cost them a few hundred thousand dollar, 1 year later they have a professional infrastructure.

NetApp Certified NCDA/NCIE-SAN

 

[goombawaho]

Yeah, but you never worry about tomorrow today. Remember that. AND Problems like that never happen to a nice company like ours.

People/small companies just don't plan ahead like that IT wise. They think IT should be a shoestring budget or only addressed when there is a problem. But you're right - they learn fast once there is a major problem.

I hope they don't run their personal lives like they do their IT.

 

[LeeMason]

The Thecus NAS that I already mentioned comes with backup software for your client PC systems to backup all of their data to the NAS device.

If you have an old server that you want to convert into another NAS device then you could use OpenFiler (

http://www.openfiler.com).

This is open source software and you can simply download an ISO, burn it to a CD, boot your old system, and install the software. You then have a NAS server.


Lee Mason
Optimal Projects Ltd

http://www.opl.co.uk

http://www.backupsanywhere.com

 

[SimonDavies]

Actually there are a number of solutions out there that don't have to break the bank.

The Buffalo Terastation Pro 2 can be purchased relatively cheaply (even better would be to buy the 1tb version and upgrade the disks one at a time, obviously you don't want to have any volumes created on them at the time otherwise it's more difficult to increase the usable disk space for that volume). I own two of them and they are really quite straight forward and integrate into AD.

Alternatively you could build your own, I wouldn't go down the route of using a Windows based server for this however because you would have to pay for the OS license, instead I would have a look at either

http://www.freenas.org

or the already mentioned Openfiler. I have used both and am actually running an Openfiler SAN at home now (8 dedicated raid 5 disks, 1 os disk). The Openfiler solution came in a tad more expensive than the Buffalo but that's because of the cost of the disks, I got most of the components on ebay (3ware raid card, case (Hiper Anubis, has space for 9*5 1/2 bays in the front of it) and 3 Lian Li drive bays (converts a 3 drive bay into holding 4 disks, subsequently I can have 12 disks in my SAN).

It can be quite a lot of fun playing around with different storage technologies so give it a go (and sorry for the necro post but it's been a while since I posted on TT).

Simon

The real world is not about exam scores, it's about ability.

 

[clonny2]

Personally, I would look at a Snap Server,

http://www.snapserver.com.

With that being said it may be more money than you are looking at spending. Look at the Snap Server 210 or 410.

 

[goombawaho]

You know the real problem in a lot of these threads - not this OP specifically? People are thinking that there is something free or low cost that will suit their needs exactly. I think that people need to get out of their fantasy worlds and realize that data storage/data backup is critical and DOES cost money to implement correctly/professionally.

Sure, you can do it on the cheap, but ask yourself how much your data/your company is worth.

 

[SimonDavies]

What really needs to be asked of users looking for storage solutions is how much their data is worth, if they can afford to lose the data then they can go down the cheap route, if however their data is worth money then they will need to pay.

I have paid in the region of £1000 for my SAN\NAS solutions and that's just as a home user.

Simon

The real world is not about exam scores, it's about ability.

 

[goombawaho]

^^^^ Bravo - data = money, unless it's just pictures of your dog fluffy. But for most businesses it should be serious business.