How do you do your Backups?

[fiza]

I want to start using Backup to Disk with something like BackupAssist. I have looked at getting something like a ReadyNAS or QNAP unit to backup to but will I be able to backup to these devices whilst retaining all NTFS permissions?

Ive alwys used Tapes to back up to so this is new to me.

[glennda]

What is your front end running on? VMware? Hyper-V?

[aleach2]

We use Veeam here. Really good software. We use the full Backup & Replication software. We also use it to replicate our servers to another VMware enviroment at the other end of our site.

 

EDIT: It works with both VMware and Hyper-V

[glennda]

We use Veeam here. Really good software. We use the full Backup & Replication software. We also use it to replicate our servers to another VMware enviroment at the other end of our site.

 

EDIT: It works with both VMware and Hyper-V

 

Yup that is what I was going to hint towards. It's very good at what it does and I use to to replicate Servers every hour offsite to a datacenter. Only ever had one person complain and that was becuase it was during the olympics and it slowed the internet down for people watching online!

[fiza]

What is your front end running on? VMware? Hyper-V?

 

We have Hyper-V.

I want to backup the VMs obviously but I also want to backup our user data which currently resides on a physical server.

[glennda]

We have Hyper-V.

I want to backup the VMs obviously but I also want to backup our user data which currently resides on a physical server.

 

If its just User data on the physical server I can highly recommend BackupPC. It won't do full host backups but install a ubuntu machine with decent amount of space. "apt-get install backuppc" login to the web interface and point it at the share. It will backup the data and then manage it all by itself. Its very good for just pure user files and as it utilises hard links for the files the storage is very efficient. I kept 6 weeks worth of 12tb front end storage using 14Tb. (Full Backup Every week, Incrementals mid week).

 

For Hyper-V VM's then Veeam.

[fiza]

If its just User data on the physical server I can highly recommend BackupPC. It won't do full host backups but install a ubuntu machine with decent amount of space. "apt-get install backuppc" login to the web interface and point it at the share. It will backup the data and then manage it all by itself. Its very good for just pure user files and as it utilises hard links for the files the storage is very efficient. I kept 6 weeks worth of 12tb front end storage using 14Tb. (Full Backup Every week, Incrementals mid week).

 

For Hyper-V VM's then Veeam.

 

Will BackupPC keep ntfs permissions etc if I need to do a restore ?

[glennda]

Will BackupPC keep ntfs permissions etc if I need to do a restore ?

 

yes I think it did - I'm not using it at the moment though so cannot test.

[mrbios]

Data held on two SANs in two buildings and replicated by DFSR, the SAN in the secondary building is backed up to tape daily (crappy LTO4 though so we have to split different data for different days) using backup exec, those tapes are stored in a fire proof safe.

 

If i could change anything I'd be using LTO5 and some different backup software, not a fan of backup exec.

 

.... That's how we do it Personally feel there's nothing quite as robust as a tape, wouldn't want to rely solely on hard disks.

Edited October 1, 2012 by mrbios

[plexer]

We use R1Soft CDP for the physical servers and Hyper-Roo for the hyper-v virtual machines.

 

Ben

[fiza]

We use R1Soft CDP for the physical servers and Hyper-Roo for the hyper-v virtual machines.

 

Ben

 

Where do you backup to with R1Soft CDP and Hyperoo?

[plexer]

I backup to a windows server 2008 r2 instance installed on a intel storage server chassis with 11 x 750GB in RAID6 config + 1 x 750GB hot spare.

 

Ben

[tmcd35]

I use Yosemite backup software to backup user data to a 4Tb Buffalo Terrastation rackmount NAS. These are our "on-site" backups. 1 Full backup each year followed by daily incrementals.

[fiza]

I use Yosemite backup software to backup user data to a 4Tb Buffalo Terrastation rackmount NAS. These are our "on-site" backups. 1 Full backup each year followed by daily incrementals.

 

Thats what I am looking to do. If you had to restore all user data from the Terastation would it keep the NTFS permissions that were on the original server for each user? Or if there was a folder shared between 3 people read/write access and 4 others with read only. The folder gets deleted. You restore from the Terastation. Would the permissions still exist or would you have to recreate them?

[fiza]

I backup to a windows server 2008 r2 instance installed on a intel storage server chassis with 11 x 750GB in RAID6 config + 1 x 750GB hot spare.

 

Ben

 

If you dont mind me asking, how much did that hardware cost?

[3s-gtech]

We use Terastations (and some other NAS boxes) with robocopy as the backup mechanism. NTFS permissions are not maintained, as the file system doesn't support them. Doesn't matter in our case, as they're mostly used to replace students' lost work where the files will inherit the correct permissions back when they're replaced. For large scale replacement, I'd need to run scripts to restore permissions. Alternatively, perhaps look at using a Windows server as the backup destination so NTFS is used, you can do a full 'DATSOU' equivalent that way.

[tmcd35]

Thats what I am looking to do. If you had to restore all user data from the Terastation would it keep the NTFS permissions that were on the original server for each user? Or if there was a folder shared between 3 people read/write access and 4 others with read only. The folder gets deleted. You restore from the Terastation. Would the permissions still exist or would you have to recreate them?

 

Yes, well to be more correct - Yosemite, the back up software, handles all this and does fully restore all permissions on files and folders. The terrastation is nothing more than the storage medium for the backup software.

 

As another poster mentioned, Robocopy will do this as well but for that to work the disk format must be NTFS and the destination must be on the domain, cant remember if terrastations support both those requirements.

 

 

Edit: just remembered, theres a version if the terrastation that uses Windows Storage Server instead of Linux, it supports iSCSI so can make a good quick'n'dirty SAN

Edited October 5, 2012 by tmcd35