creating backup server with different hardware specs?

[kentavio]

hi, I'm trying to make my server more failure resistant. My idea was to have a backup server, which will be kept off-line but will be online in case of the main server failure.

Does anyone have idea what the best way might be? My server has RAID 1 & 5 for OS and data respectively.

Can I achieve this with a different hardware setup (for example, instead of RAID 1 & 5, no RAID or just 1 since I expect the main server to recover within one day)?

I started thinking about this because the main server hosts Exchange, Web, and Domain. Since we log on to the main server to be able to connect to the database server, once it goes down we have no email, Internet, or database.

I'm sure someone has better idea than my backup server idea. It would be great if you could give me some insights! Thnx

 

[wahnula]

I'm sure someone has better idea than my backup server idea

Yes, and it's built right into SBS! The SBS backup Wizard! I recommend an internal IDE/SATA drive big enough to hold two day's worth of backups.

I run your exact RAID config and when the RAID 1 array had a problem, I took one last SBS Backup from the lone drive, then I tried rebuilding the RAID 1 array instead of replacing the failed drive. Big mistake! My RAID 1 array was toasted...

Following MS's procedure, I replaced the two drives (15 minutes) loaded the first SBS CD (30-40 min) then applied SP1 (or whatever SP level was there when the backup was made), and recovered both arrays within an hour. The backup worked great!

Some use external drives for SBS Backup, I like the speed of IDE (or SATA) and the convenience of having it onboard. I also have two 100Gb laptop drives in cases (that are rotated daily) that use an incremental file-copy utility (SyncBackSE) as a data store. In the event of catastrophic failure, like fire or theft, I can import the data into another server.

Best of luck!

Tony

"Buy what you like, or you'll be forced to like what you buy"...me

 

[kentavio]

Hi wahnula,

Thnx for your input. I agree with you on the backup wizard idea. But I guess I didn't give you the background fully...sorry. The recent failure on our server was caused by a bad RAID controller. Obviously, I had to get a new RAID controller, and any backup wouln't matter since array couldn't be restored.

It took us 1.5 days to find the exact problem, and 3 days to get the new controller, totalling 4.5 offline days. Hence I reached the idea of the server replication for situation like this.

In case of the RAID controller failure, what would be a good way to keep the system going??

 

[wahnula]

any backup wouldn't matter since array couldn't be restored

That may be true for SBS backup but not external file-copy or imaging backup...you simply import the data to the new array, which is why I do both. At worst you lose a portion of a day's work (from device rotation to hardware failure). This is why I've recommended a file-copy type backup program like SyncBackSE, it might not work for a large organization but for me it's perfect. A larger organization might go to imaging the entire array to an external disk that's rotated daily.

Tony

"Buy what you like, or you'll be forced to like what you buy"...me