Backup Server - Anyone Specced One Recently?

[CyBeRkId2002]

Hi all,

 

Have a million and one things on my plate at the minute (don't we all!) and wondered if anyone had spec'd a backup server recently? We are looking at providing a remote backup portal for the primaries in our trust using Duplicati/OwnCloud, just looking for something to run it on.

 

I am thinking we would have:

 

Small Server (something like HP microserver although these seem to have gone up a lot)

2 x 256gb SSD (RAID1) (OS)

2 x 1tb WD Red (RAID1) (Data)

 

Particularly interested in views on whether onboard MB RAID would be acceptable, or whether I should be sourcing a hardware RAID card?

 

Anyone done anything similar

[Steve21]

Personally would only ever go for a HW raid (Assuming this is their only backup?) and a bigger setup (RAID 5/6 etc). 1TB backup across multiple schools is pretty small really

 

Also, not sure if this is using cheaper HDDs or proper server ones but seems 256GB SSD is a bit of an overkill if you're only going to pay for a 1TB backup section?

 

What do the primaries have locally in terms of storage/servers?

 

Steve

[CyBeRkId2002]

Very, very little... one of the schools has only 40 students! MIS is cloud based. I think 100gb per school should be more than sufficient. Think you are right on the HW Raid though as it needs to be reliable. 256gb SSD was only due to them being ~£50 or so

[Steve21]

If they really have that small data usage, could you setup the backup server as part of your own infrastructure? (Assuming you have a VM HOST, just throw a new VM up etc) At least it'll be on proper hardware etc then, and easily expandable if they did need a bit more etc

 

Obviously dependant on what storage you have "spare" etc, but at least you know it'd give them a full backup etc, and then could always offload any archives to something like the microserver with a straight 4 HDD raid

 

Steve

[localzuk]

Could you spin up a cheap VM in Azure or AWS and use their storage as a back-end for it? Can scale according to use then, and don't need to buy a box.

[bald_pig]

Duplicati can back up to Google Drive, with unlimited storage for education. Cheaper than buying your own storage!

 

Also, bare in mind that Duplicati doesn't have a stable release as far as I'm aware, only betas.

[southhamster]

Duplicati can back up to Google Drive, with unlimited storage for education. Cheaper than buying your own storage!

 

Also, bare in mind that Duplicati doesn't have a stable release as far as I'm aware, only betas.

+1 for duplicati. We backup around 30 encrypted staff laptops with duplicati to users gdrive. With duplicati monitoring https://www.duplicati-monitoring.com/

We can easily see problems.

We also use syncbackpro to backup critical folders with recovery and versioning. It also backs up to gdrive if required.

[MYK-IT]

I know that cloud storage can be, or become potentially expensive, but based on the assumption that you are looking at procuring a server with 1TB storage anyway, for 4 primary schools (which costs could be split 4, or 5 ways - if beneficial for your school too) RedStor Online Backup & Recovery may well be of benefit. (Also factor in electricity costs, etc.)

 

You could, for example purchase 1TB of online storage, create and assign 'data groups' (each with different connection / data encryption passwords - GDPR etc.) to each primary school, with an allocated storage quota (e.g. 200mb etc) for backups. The data from each primary would be stored, and managed independently from each primary school - but still centrally managed, by yourself.

 

You could even create an additional, end-user accounts to allow each school to access (just) their backups (in addition to you).

 

You can even centrally manage it all via your smartphone - allowing you to check backup jobs, data quotas and even restores (to individual file level, whereby a time-limited link can be emailed to the required person, to allow them to retrieve the requested file / data). Ultimately, you just require an internet connected device to access your data.

[SuperChris1980]

I can help you with this, is there a suitable time for our server team to call you

 

Thanks

 

Chris

[Jcx500]

+1 for redstor

[Edu-IT]

Anyone using Redstor able to give me an idea of what you pay?

[Steve21]

Anyone using Redstor able to give me an idea of what you pay?

 

This is a slightly older quote as we found them to be stupidly expensive compared to other alternatives for doing large data (and yes I know there are success stories on here etc, but for that price there are many companies that can too, seems very much more like it's for small schools/business that it's priced at)

 

Based on a 3 year "discounted" up-front pricing:

 

5TB - £7k~ per year (11p~ per GB)

8TB - £10k~ per year (10.5p~ per GB)

(Figures rounded a bit as being lazy, but the principle should help I guess)

 

Steve

Edited July 21, 2019 by Steve21

[PotNoodleTech]

Bought my backup server for £3000, refurbished Dell RX720 with 2 x SSD for O/S and 12 x 4TB HDD in Raid 6 for backup data. Runs Server 2012 with Veeam on top.

 

Runs absolutely perfectly. Will run it for 5 years. Total cost per year £600.

Edited July 22, 2019 by PotNoodleTech