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disk based backup solution
- Thread starter lardum
- Start date
I used Microsoft's DPM 2007 product for a few months and liked it ok. It's a little different compared to that of BackupExec and a much more simple product in my opinion. I just moved from DPM to a product called Replay put out by a company called AppAssure. Like DPM, but much more of a mature feeling product, especially if you have an Exchange server/(s) your having to maintain.
I run mine on a HP DL185 filled with 2x72GB SAS drives RAID1 for my OS and the balance of the 10 slots are filled with 1TB SATA drives (RAID5). I don't have as much data as you to backup, so my 8TB of storage gives me plenty of room for my retension of 1 month + a lot of growing room. I take snapshots of changed data on my protected servers every 30 minutes, the software allows for disaster recovery to a virtual machine while you get your main server back operational, and you can do bare metal restores (just boot from a created CD and your off to the races). My only negative about the Replay software is that compared to DPM, it does not have anything built into it to archive off to tape. You have to do that with 3rd party software. Something that simple though, I would imagine will be something they address in the future.
To get to your capacity needs, you could easily add external storage since I think you'll need a total storage capacity of about 2-3 times your data store (for initial snap shots, changes, and due to your retention time) . Make sure you have plenty of RAM (8-16GB) and do a 64bit load of either 2003 or 2008 to handle that RAM. Having a dedicated subnet for backups (dedicated NIC in your servers to a dedicated switch) would be best since you can enable jumbo frames on that NIC and switch and nothing else would contend with that network, but it's not a necessity.
I run mine on a HP DL185 filled with 2x72GB SAS drives RAID1 for my OS and the balance of the 10 slots are filled with 1TB SATA drives (RAID5). I don't have as much data as you to backup, so my 8TB of storage gives me plenty of room for my retension of 1 month + a lot of growing room. I take snapshots of changed data on my protected servers every 30 minutes, the software allows for disaster recovery to a virtual machine while you get your main server back operational, and you can do bare metal restores (just boot from a created CD and your off to the races). My only negative about the Replay software is that compared to DPM, it does not have anything built into it to archive off to tape. You have to do that with 3rd party software. Something that simple though, I would imagine will be something they address in the future.
To get to your capacity needs, you could easily add external storage since I think you'll need a total storage capacity of about 2-3 times your data store (for initial snap shots, changes, and due to your retention time) . Make sure you have plenty of RAM (8-16GB) and do a 64bit load of either 2003 or 2008 to handle that RAM. Having a dedicated subnet for backups (dedicated NIC in your servers to a dedicated switch) would be best since you can enable jumbo frames on that NIC and switch and nothing else would contend with that network, but it's not a necessity.
We have used AhsayOBS for quite some time now - However this can be used for onsite backups as well. We find it very reliable and it also support a number of Operating Systems and has plugins for Exchange, SQL Server, etc. There is a version of the server software that runs native on NAS devices such as this one: (Thecus 1U4500). With 4 x 1.5TB disks in a RAID5 set this can provide about 4TB of storage. AhsayOBS compresses all data before transfer and stores that data compressed.
Dependant upon the type of data you might find that 6TB compressed down to about half of that. In addition incremental backups are taken using an in-file delta mechanism which means that one changed blocks are backed up. Making retention of data less of an overhead of space.
If you find that your requirements exceeds about 4TB (compressed) these devices are stackable (or you could split your servers and have two backup servers on two NAS devices). As an added benefit these devices can also replicate to offsite storage as part of any DR plan.
Lee Mason
Optimal Projects Ltd
Dependant upon the type of data you might find that 6TB compressed down to about half of that. In addition incremental backups are taken using an in-file delta mechanism which means that one changed blocks are backed up. Making retention of data less of an overhead of space.
If you find that your requirements exceeds about 4TB (compressed) these devices are stackable (or you could split your servers and have two backup servers on two NAS devices). As an added benefit these devices can also replicate to offsite storage as part of any DR plan.
Lee Mason
Optimal Projects Ltd
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