Backups

[Gatt]

Ok what are your backup strategies - I'm trying to setup NTBackup but cannot fathom what backup type to use

I wnat to create 6 sets - Backup at the end of every day (Monday -> Friday) and a Full weekly backup

Do I use Incremental, Differential or Daily for the daily backups
For Weeklyy backups I'm guessing Normal?

And do I choose Replace or Append (for both types)

Need help!

[plexer]

Download backupassist and use that to set up you ntbackup jobs.

Otherwise you need to decide how much data you have to backup and how much you can fit on a backup tape. If you don't have an autoloader then you are restricted to the capacity of one tape.

You can use compression but you will never get 2:1 on a tape.

The best method is to do a full everynight so that you only have to go to a previous nights backup tape to recover something.

You may of course be backing up to disk and then possibly to tape from there hard to say without knowing what backup devices you have.

Ben

[Gatt]

Sorry meant to say - am backing up to Disk then to tape

[RoyG]

We happen to use BackupExec, but the strategies need be no different.

Schedules as follows -

During term time -
Every Friday at 8pm Full Backup - Overwrite (ie Replace)
Leave tape in
Every Mon, Tue, Wed & Thu at 8pm - Incremental Backup - Append
That gives us a complete record of one week's files & settings.

Repeat for 10 tape sets.

At end of each half-term Full Backup, kept for 1 year

During school holidays -
Every weekday at 8pm Incremental backup - Append
That gives us a complete record of all changes during holiday.

We very, very rarely have to restore from tape as Netware has a restore facility (like a super-duper Recycle Bin) that will retrieve most files deleted in the last month or so.

Hope this helps,

Roy

[RoyG]

P.S.

Also have Intelligent Disaster Recovery - boot server from CD, insert last backup tape - sorted!

Thankfully I've never had to use it - I think I'd be pretty nervous if I had to!!

Also keep backup tapes in fire-proof safe or off site.

Roy

[e_g_r]

Why when M$ ripped Netware off for its AD did it not clone the restore facility?

So much a help when people lost files, quicker than looking through tapes.

[plexer]

Using ntbackup you can also do a bare metal restore by creating an ASR tape/disk file.

To use it you boot the server from the windows cd and then you can restore your asr tape onto the server and then you use your normal backup tapes to get your data back to where it was.

Ben

[Sirbendy]

Why when M$ ripped Netware off for its AD did it not clone the restore facility?

So much a help when people lost files, quicker than looking through tapes.

Shadow copy...? Bloody wonderful it is too..

[Geoff]

Shadow copy is not a valid disaster recovery method. :P