How to backup live data to HOT SWAP DRIVES on live server ?

[johnpau80]

How to backup live data to HOT SWAP DRIVES on live server ?

We are having a dell poweredge 2800 server with 5 drives plugged in. ( 2 drives - RAID 1, 3 drives - RAID 5 )

I wanted to have this backup solution:
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Can we plug in 5 more drives in the server and have the data backup to the spare 5 drives regularly. So I can take the drives (5 backup drives ) offsite every night. I wanted to buy a spare 2800 poweredge server and incase the server goes down, I wanted to plug the 5 backup drives in the spare poweredge 2800 server. Can this be done ?

Any ideas !!!

 

[steveot]

If you wer buying a spare server why not cluster the servers? You could swap the drives out everynight assuming teh server can hotswap them. I think your better off buying a tape drive for the expense of the 5 drive and risk using them

 

[johnpau80]

OK, I can't leave my spare server in the same room(sorry but trying to take no chances of someone breaking in and stealing the serves as well).

Can you eloborate on the clustering, do we need both the primary and the spare server to be onsite to do it ?

thanks for your reply

 

[steveot]

Couple of option. You could use Backup Exec CPS to replicate the server data to a remote location over a WAN link to the other server. If you cant leave the server in same room then clustering is out of the question.

 

[johnpau80]

Symantec's Backup Exec CPS ?

Can you give me an overview as how it works ?

Lets say I have a windows SBS 2003 server which has around 60GB worth of data (AD,Exchange,file server). Now I wanted it to be backed up everyday to the remote location and at the event of a failure I should be able to restore or able to get the offsite server and get it up and running.