What do you use to backup your File Stores?

[darknova]

Hi All,

 

We have a dilemma at our school... we are having more and more requests for students to have additional space.... which we want to meet!

 

However the issue is... we are quite a large school and to accommodate the increase in file quotes we would be talking about TB's of Data... how on earth would this be backed up...?

 

If we were to use tapes it would take days!

If we used NAS/SAN that would be on-site which would leave no redundancy if something happened to the school?

 

Has anyone found a solution to this problem?

 

Cheers

 

DK

[Midget]

you could buy a load of 1TB HDDs, a load of hot swap bays and have 1 HDD for every day of the week and each year group.

 

eg:

 

MonHDDYr7, MonHDDYr8 ...

TueHDDYr7, TueHDDYr8 ...

 

 

or combine some year groups etc.

 

Better method for you will probably be Disk to Disk to Tape

 

Disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) is an approach to computer storage backup and archiving in which data is initially copied to backup storage on a disk storage system and then periodically copied again to a tape storage system (or possibly to an optical storage system).

[Chris_Jones]

We use External 1TB Hard Drives, backing up over USB. It does 360GB in 11 Hours for a full backup once a week, and then we use differentials for the rest of the week. The drive is then swapped out and taken offsite and another put in its place for the following week.

[psydii]

We've got 14TB, about to move up to c20TB.

 

At Gigabit 20TB cannot be backed up in less than 45.5 hours.

 

Before you consider how the heck to back it up, just think how long it would take to restore after a disaster.

 

It is pretty important to spread the storage over multiple arrays and controllers. Preferably on separate machines. I know people who had this amount of data in a SAN. The fabric messed up and trashed the lot. At least across three servers with DAS, a single controller or server failure only trashes a third of the data.

 

For the backup - Disk to Disk to tape is the only sane option. Multi-drive Autochanger for the tape system. The backup system including tapes will probably cost a similar amount to the live storage system. I'd recommend Daily/live backups to the D2D and a full backup to tape once a term with daily incrementals, these tapes are then only required if both an array and the D2D system have failed, i.e. theft, fire or act of god.

 

Pay for 4hr 24/7 hardware and software support on the array, backup system and backup software. If anything goes wrong at any point with that amount of data, knowing that you have paid for the best support available is the only thing that can comfort you.

 

Oh and make sure SMT understand how long it will take to recover from an array failure, what steps you have taken to militate against 'an event' and what steps you have taken to mitigate the impact should one occour.

Edited November 11, 2008 by psydii

[birchanger]

We replaced BE last year. We use Veeam now, backing up to a 27TB array on a dedicated backup server. The backups are then copied to tape. Our tape library (which was replaced when we bought Veeam) holds 48 LTO5 tapes and has two drives.

 

Backup to disk with Veeam is fast, as it's done on a whole-VM basis (or just the changed blocks in the virtual disks, if an incremental) and because Veeam can access our SAN directly on the storage VM instead of using the general-purpose data network. Copying those backups to tape is also quick - don't know where you got the idea that tape is slow - it isn't really.

[robyholmes]

Azure backup here, local 20 day cache of data to quick recovery but everything is stored in Azure for up to 3 years. Took a bit to get the first few backups up but now daily's are very quick as its changes only. Costs are very good as well compared to other offsite solutions.

[altecsole]

Azure backup here, local 20 day cache of data to quick recovery but everything is stored in Azure for up to 3 years. Took a bit to get the first few backups up but now daily's are very quick as its changes only. Costs are very good as well compared to other offsite solutions.

 

Do you use DPM to do the backup? Can you give an indication of how much your Azure costs are?

 

Many thanks.

[zag]

We use VEEAM with file recovery option, it doesnt backup terabytes a night, just the changed files so probably 10gb at most.

 

Takes about 6mins

 

Backs up to a server in another building with 8tb of SSDs.

[robyholmes]

Do you use DPM to do the backup? Can you give an indication of how much your Azure costs are?

 

Many thanks.

 

We use a version of DPM you are provided when paying for Azure Backup called 'Azure Backup Server'. Its just DPM without the tape backup it seems with the Azure Agent installed at the same time. As for costs, we backup 3 'Instances' which are File Data, SIMS and DPM itself. We currently have around 2.2TB in Azure and its costing around £65 a month. You can use DPM to backup some files locally which I intend on using for apps, this is zero cost as it doesn't count as an instance or file storage.

[pete]

We use a version of DPM you are provided when paying for Azure Backup called 'Azure Backup Server'. Its just DPM without the tape backup it seems with the Azure Agent installed at the same time. As for costs, we backup 3 'Instances' which are File Data, SIMS and DPM itself. We currently have around 2.2TB in Azure and its costing around £65 a month. You can use DPM to backup some files locally which I intend on using for apps, this is zero cost as it doesn't count as an instance or file storage.

 

^ Is that a case of "install on/backup as many hosts as you want because we're charging by the GB/TB"?

[robyholmes]

^ Is that a case of "install on/backup as many hosts as you want because we're charging by the GB/TB"?

 

Cost are hard to work out, its based on amount you store and instances. An instance is each type of backup you do I believe. So ours are split between Data, SIMS and DPM itself. They each have their own retention periods etc. There's also a fee for transfers I believe that's so small you don't need to worry about it.

[altecsole]

We use a version of DPM you are provided when paying for Azure Backup called 'Azure Backup Server'. Its just DPM without the tape backup it seems with the Azure Agent installed at the same time. As for costs, we backup 3 'Instances' which are File Data, SIMS and DPM itself. We currently have around 2.2TB in Azure and its costing around £65 a month. You can use DPM to backup some files locally which I intend on using for apps, this is zero cost as it doesn't count as an instance or file storage.

 

Thanks for this. We already use DPM for local backup but getting an idea of cost for Azure Backup has always seemed a bit vauge. It's useful to have an example. Cheers.

[robyholmes]

Thanks for this. We already use DPM for local backup but getting an idea of cost for Azure Backup has always seemed a bit vauge. It's useful to have an example. Cheers.

 

If you already have DPM its a good fit. You can sign up for £125 of Azure credit and trail it. You should be able to use your existing DPM and just upload what you want. As its pay as you go you can trail it for as long as your want. We tried to work out the costs but trailing it and couldn't.