Hi,

I'm considering setting up a site on a dedicated server. My problem is I'm not sure how to handle db backups. With my shared host, backups are handled automatically on a daily basis. The host handles the backup, and keeps it on tape. What happens on a dedicated server?

On a dedicated server I assume that I have to handle backups. How is the backup performed? Where is it stored? A small site could email the backup file somewhere, but what happens when the site gets to be popular and the database gets large (100MB, 200MB, or even gig!)? Do dedicated server providers offer a place to store backups (as part of the service or even for a price)?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Abu Mami

Hello
The easiest way to do it is install e second hard drive and have a script that runs once a day and copies specified directories over to it from the main drive.

Gordon

And you'll notice there are a few different forms of backup (such as RAID versions). Good, but if your box gets cracked or you screw up something, it is screwed up on two drives, not just one. Only good if one of the drives fails.

Second drives are good, offsite copies are best.


This is not meant to be a sales pitch, just some experience. Ignore the bottom half of the page.

<< Admin edit : Please post the information on a non-company site and paste the url here.. Kunal >>


Tom

The best system involve you putting RAID MIRROR striping in all your boxes, and then having a daily tape backup system. Try VXA, they gave a presentation to our local Linux Users Group, and their products looked impressive. I don't understand how their 1U unit works but i think it uses dual tapes and stores 128 GB. I'm looking for something that connects via ethernet, so that more than one machine can backup to it...

I'm guessing that it will have to be connected to server1 with scsi and then all the other servers will just send data to server1 to pipe to the tape backup. I'm calling VXA tomorrow morning to find out detail. They have a unit for $1,800 that looks like it will do what i want.

I will post updates after I call in the morning, anybody else have any suggestions?

Hi,
Originally posted by ckizer
The best system involve you putting RAID MIRROR striping in all your boxes, and then having a daily tape backup system.
Thanks, but this is way too ambitious (read: expensive) for me. I'm looking for a low cost dedicated server (below $100) since I'm running on a shoe-string budget. The backup solution you propose is itself more expensive than the server I'm looking for.

I've found a company that I'll probably go with for a dedicated server, but backing up my database remains an unresolved issue. As I mentioned in my original post, shared hosting has backup built-in. With a dedicated server, I'm on my own, unless I pay for the backup service. Then the price gets too expensive for me, and I'm back to shared hosting.

I'm looking for a cheap and reliable way to handle db backups on a dedicated server. I guess I could use a mySQL dump (to my home computer) in the beginning while the database is small. By the time the database gets large, hopefully the site is generating enough income to allow me to pay for more a more serious backup mechanism.

Thanks to everyone for their help so far. This is giving me food for thought and is really helping me out.

Regards,

Abu Mami

Originally posted by tom.oneil
Second drives are good, offsite copies are best.


This is not meant to be a sales pitch, just some experience. Ignore the bottom half of the page.

<< Admin edit : Please post the information on a non-company site and paste the url here.. Kunal >>


Tom

K. "No one cares about backups - they only care about restores."

Tom ONeil, after the Chicago flood of 1992 and 1989 San Francisco earthquake.

"I was on the Disaster Recovery team for both of these events, creating data centers out of warehouses,
building machines out of whatever we could find, converting tape formats and file structures on the fly. The actual events themselves are interesting only from a human endurance point of view , and the engineering feats accomplished by caffeine-crazed systems people.

What is relevant to today's colocation customer is the aftermath. 80% of the business that did not have sufficient backups went under in 9 months or less. In todays economy that translates into about 10 minutes. What I discovered really woke me up - we were able to re-create entire companies without one person or building left of that company from backup, but even if we had every employee and facility they owned at our disposal (we did) we could not rebuild them if we did not have good backups."

The important thing to remember about backups is what they store. A
computer with just an operating system is only a blank canvas, waiting to
to be transformed in a useful tool by the efforts of programmers, web
designers and sys admins. Without their information and effort the best
server in the world is a paperweight.

Hi again,

Originally posted by tom.oneil

K. "No one cares about backups - they only care about restores."

Tom ONeil, after the Chicago flood of 1992 and 1989 San Francisco earthquake.

"I was on the Disaster Recovery team for both of these events, creating data centers out of warehouses,
building machines out of whatever we could find, converting tape formats and file structures on the fly. The actual events themselves are interesting only from a human endurance point of view , and the engineering feats accomplished by caffeine-crazed systems people.

< middle cut out for sake of brevity >

The important thing to remember about backups is what they store. A
computer with just an operating system is only a blank canvas, waiting to
to be transformed in a useful tool by the efforts of programmers, web
designers and sys admins. Without their information and effort the best
server in the world is a paperweight.

Well, Tom is right of course. However, my current task at hand is a bit more modest in scope. I'm just trying to get a website started and I'm trying to get the details right so I get a proper start. If I was independently wealthy, I'd sign up for some mega-bucks managed server and that'd be that. For that matter, if I was independently wealthy, I'd more likely be sitting out in my backyard, sucking on a Guinness Stout and reading a turn of the century English murder mystery.

However, I'm independently broke, so my search for a host has to be more modest (forget the Guinness and book thing altogether!). I would like to use a dedicated server for my site, but if it doesn't give me what I need, then I'll have to modify my specs.

Thanks for the insight Tom.

Regards,

Abu Mami

Hello Again,
I still think a second drive is a good, cheap starting point.

You could also look at Tar-ing up your files every week and sending them back to you.
This would work well if you had ADSL or cable modem.

Most companies offering dedicated servers also offer tape backups. I think we pay about $45 per month for daily back ups onto tape as well as our secondary drive system.

Gordon

Originally posted by Abu Mami

I'm looking for a cheap and reliable way to handle db backups on a dedicated server. I guess I could use a mySQL dump (to my home computer) in the beginning while the database is small. By the time the database gets large, hopefully the site is generating enough income to allow me to pay for more a more serious backup mechanism.
that's what i'm doing with this cronjob mysqldump script on a daily basis - http://vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4256

no probs in dumping 33 of my MySQL databases of which my vB forum one is 300MB in size while gzipped! :eek:

Hi again,

Originally posted by GordonH
I still think a second drive is a good, cheap starting point.I agree, only problem is that I have to pay for the installation of the second drive. :-(

Originally posted by GordonH
You could also look at Tar-ing up your files every week and sending them back to you.
This would work well if you had ADSL or cable modem.
Originally posted by eva2000
that's what i'm doing with this cronjob mysqldump script on a daily basis - http://vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4256

no probs in dumping 33 of my MySQL databases of which my vB forum one is 300MB in size while gzipped! :eek: Hey, now we're cookin' with gas! This seems perfect for my needs - at least right now. I only have ISDN, but that should suffice for the early stages of my web site.

Originally posted by GordonH
Most companies offering dedicated servers also offer tape backups. I think we pay about $45 per month for daily back ups onto tape as well as our secondary drive system.I spoke to Clint at ACS Datanet, and he told me that they offer a full daily backup for $75/month. When I told him that I only need to backup several megabytes, he laughed and said he couldn't see charging me for this.

This seems reasonable to me. If and when my site gets more popular and starts paying for itself, I'll be happy to pay ACS for daily backups.

An aside: I haven't signed up for a dedicated server yet, but I'll probably go with ACS. I've corresponded with them several times, and Clint replied within minutes each time. I also spoke to Clint by phone, since I wanted to get to know him better before I sign up. It was a very satisfactory conversation. So far I'm impressed with ACS. For $50, I think this is a dynamite deal. A great way for a small guy to get started with a dedicated server. I'll post a follow-up in a few months, after I've had a chance to experience their service for real.

Thanks again for the comments and suggestions. It's all starting to come together.

Regards,

Abu Mami

Have you read thread about ACs datanet:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14382

If you do go with them tell us how it goes.

About the second hard drive backup, I'd recommend copying everything from the first hard drive to it every night, and then unmounting the drive. This way you have a little bit less chances to loose your files if a evil haxor gets in, no?