Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Colocation and Data Centers : Need advice on backup solutions

[pickles]

Hi folks,

Currently I have several servers colo'd, each with daily backup service. Backups use Veritas, and are disk-to-disk (colo's main disk array) with weekly off site tapes. I pay $109 per server for this service. At some point, I'll want to implement my own backup strategy to reduce my per mo cost. Can you read through the following and offer comments.


What is the "best" and "least expensive" way to build a raid device? (I've see 1.5-2 tera raids out their but they are 10K+). What I "think" I want is the following.

Decent intell based computer runing linux. Tons of drives configured in a raid5 to achieve 2TB. I "think" I want EIDE drives to keep the overall cost down. I "think" to do this I'll need an external disk array connected to the linux box. I'll run a server version of Veritas and back up each machine nightly. I'll retain 30 days of history.

Can anyone offer examples, links to a similar configuration?

Do you have something else mind? (Concrete working examples please).

Also, I'll still want off site storage of "backup" machine. Question is, do I want the backup machine archived weekly or monthly. I can signup for this service with my colo provider.

Any and all help, especialy advice referencing working solutions is appreciated.

Side Note: Lots of folks use rsync to keep copies of their servers. I use rsync to sync important data, and to move stuff between servers, but it seems to me that it makes copies, not compressed backups. If rsync were used instead of Veritas, is there a way to compress the data stored to get maximum benifit of the backup machines capacity?

Thanks again folks,

Bob

[pmabraham]

Greetings:

We use Iomega NAS units. It works wonders.

Thank you.

[pickles]

Originally posted by dynamicnet
Greetings:

We use Iomega NAS units. It works wonders.

Thank you.

The 1.28TB models are $12,999. Maybe I'm fooling myself to think that there is a reliagle 1TB raid configuration availble that is in the <$5k range.

Bob

[rusko]

pickles,

no, you are not fooling yourself. a nas box is just a server running nfsd if you can live with using free (as in speech/beer) software for the backups, you can just put together a big box with a lot of drives. 5k may be a bit low, but we, for one, could build one for about 7k or so. do some research =]

good luck,
paul

[volfman]

rsync is cool because it does incremental backups... i.e. it can only update changes. This minimizes the time it takes to transfer and the bandwidth usage.

[pickles]

Originally posted by rusko
pickles,

no, you are not fooling yourself. a nas box is just a server running nfsd if you can live with using free (as in speech/beer) software for the backups, you can just put together a big box with a lot of drives. 5k may be a bit low, but we, for one, could build one for about 7k or so. do some research =]

good luck,
paul

Rusko,

I may be contacting you in 5-6 months. My general rule of thumb, is that I buy equipment, when monthly fees would cover the cost in 12 months. I'm paying $109.mo per server now so when I put my 6th machine into production, I'll be at the one year ROI point.

I'll probably run Veritas on the box even if I (or you) build a custom solution. It has a great interface that make backup/restores quite simple.

The reason I "thought" I needed some sort of a raid array, is for hot swapping. Will your custom solution handle this?

Bob

[pickles]

Originally posted by volfman
rsync is cool because it does incremental backups... i.e. it can only update changes. This minimizes the time it takes to transfer and the bandwidth usage.

There are quite a few switches/options with RSYNC, and I am not fully versed in its use beyond basic syncing, but...

If you sync your target directory nightly, how would you restore a "previous" version of the file. Keeping 30 days of backups on hand using a backup/restore system, does more than disaster recovery, it also addresses "opps I didn't mean to do that" problems.

[RSanders]

I can build 1TB+ arrays for under $3000. We have them deployed, and they work well.

You can use rsync, mondo (very cool), and commercial packages like tapeware.

The reason it costs $10K for one of these units is you really do have to know exactly what your doing, and even then it takes a long time on a hardware build.

If you have niether $10K or the experience to build your own machine, look for a custom builder. We frequently will build custom equipment for clients near cost when the final unit is part of a hosting agreement. Check with your host?