Hi ya´ll!

I had some bad experiences with my old dedicated server, because I haven´t had a backup system.

Do you have any recommendations on backup methods?

I´ve seen some providers offering daily or weekly backup. How are they doing it? With tapes, if so, then what types, what are the expences etc.?

I am offering hosting and I also want to offer backups! Is it ok, if I installed a 2nd hard drive and then just let some program (do you know what kind, or can I set it up in a cobalt linux control panel, with plesk, cpanel3 or so?) and then just overwrite the customers sites once a week?

thank you!
°Simon.

Although backing up to a second hard drive is an awesome idea and a great possibility, it won't work. It will work just fine if a user accidentaly deletes a file and wants it restored, but when your machine is taken over, they can just as easily mount the second drive and wipe it clean. Then you are left without ANY backup.

Backups via tape are the best. It's fast and cheap. Although you have to make sure the company who is backing them up will give your tapes a safe home. You need to know that they aren't throwing away old ones, and that they keep them in a safe location. If there was a fire in the NOC and they kept them ontop of your server, not only would your server go up in flames, but there goes your backup too. So not only do you not have a server, but you also don't have a backup at all.

You'll need to ask these questions to your host.

thank you Vincent Paglione!

Do you know how much tapes are and how much a tape drive is?

Is one backup per week enough?

Should my host overwrite old tapes, instead of buying e.g. 4 tapes a month or 30 tapes a month?

How exactly does these taping work?

Does my host put in a tape everyday and then makes a copy of the hard drive?

How long does it take to backup a 30 gig hd?

thank you in advance!

Originally posted by simon
thank you Vincent Paglione!

Do you know how much tapes are and how much a tape drive is?

Is one backup per week enough?

Should my host overwrite old tapes, instead of buying e.g. 4 tapes a month or 30 tapes a month?

How exactly does these taping work?

Does my host put in a tape everyday and then makes a copy of the hard drive?

How long does it take to backup a 30 gig hd?

thank you in advance!

Your host will most likely offer you a tape drive and tapes. You'll need to check with pricing with them. If you are co-located, them someone else might be able to help you with the prices are for tape drives and tapes.

You can never have too many backups. But backing up takes many resources, and you don't want to be backing up 24x7. It depends on what you want to guarantee your customers.

You should definitely overwrite tapes. Keep maybe 5-10 recent tapes, and then start overwriting. As much as you can afford, really. See, a trick some hackers will pull is they will take control of your machine, but obscure it. So you don't know they've taken control, and all of the while, backups are being made with a compromised machine. You no longer have a safe backup. So it is good to have some backups which extend in length, if the worst happens.

Basically you'll need to setup a script to execute at midnight every so often and it will copy files to a tape drive. Not too tough, but it will require some setup.

I don't understand the next question. Your host will probably rotate the tapes for you. That's all you would need.

I don't know about speed. It depends on how fast your system is, and how much you spend on the tape drive.

thank you again!

Some of the pitfalls of various back up methods have already been mentioned. You have several options.

A RAID system (I think level 5 and above) offers protection from data loss due to hard drive failure.

Backing up to a second hard drive offers a bit less reliable method of protecting against a loss. Both methods may be vulnerable to crackers, depending on server security.

Since hard drives have gotten cheaper, many hosts now back up onto them instead of tapes. While tapes are a bit less reliable than hard drives, not to mention slower, unless they use more than one drive, it might be preferable to use tapes. That way, you can have multiple backups and ensure a minimal loss of data if there should be a problem.

It's important to be sure that the data is being transferred successfully to whatever backup media is being used. I know of cases where this was not done, the main hard drive failed,, and it took considerable effort to recreate the data, including doing so with manual effort. It was all accounting and inventory information and of vital importance ot the businesses concerned.

In one case, backups were made nightly to a second hard drive and to a tape, one of 31 that were used in rotation. The second hard drive was okay and no one had checked that the transfer was being made. The tape drive had a defect and was not backing up data. When the main drive failed, there were no recent reliable backups.

The problem was combination of human and mechanical error.

1 point to be aware of too. some places say tape back up, and it is, sorta. Basically they hook ya up to a tape drive, give you a script that runs at midnight and dumps it to -A- tape. as in a single tape that goes round n round without further human intervention. What you probably want is managed backups, which will cost a bit more, but be well worth it in the long run.

1 company that a client of mine uses claims tape back ups, but thats only because they slapped a 8GB HP tape drive on the server in the fire / forget it mode. As was said above, if the server melts down and your tapes in the drive, a melted tape does ya no good. For maximum saftey, you'd want a 7-21 day tape rotation with off site storage of tapes. Again, more cost, but in mission critical situations, worth it.

and again...test those backups! :)

Do you know where I can buy cheap tape drives and tapes for 1U, 2U and towers?

thank ya´ll!