Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : Data backup?

[jsong]

Just curious about how you guys with dedicated server in datacenters do the daily (maybe weekly?) backup.

Pay datacenter $$$ a month to do the backup?
Get 2 HDs and use one as backup disk?
Rent two dedicated servers and ftp one to another?
Configure 2 servers as Dual Active or Hot standby Mode?
¡_?

James

[John[H4Y]]

Daily backups to a 2nd harddrive (better than a RAID mirror because you can prevent dataloss from being copied over), plus bi-weekly off-server content backups via rsync to a backup server. The 2nd harddrive is good in case of a harddrive failure and the remote backups are good for file loss or in case a format is needed due to a security comprimise or something like that. We also have daily tape rotation at the datacenter we use for our standard shared hosting accounts.

[jsong]

Thank you, John[H4Y]. Seems that a 2nd hd is a good/economical way to go. No sure if any customer is willing to pay double $$ to put their websites on Dual Active/Hot standby servers to get a 99.999 up time

[astutiumRob]

Nighly tar up of servers and sftp to NAS
Nightly tape backup of NAS to DLT unit
Once a week swap of 7 tapes by DC staff,
set A collected for offsite, set B loaded, set C in cupboard ready for next week.

[trustedurl.com]

Here's what we do:

1 - a 2nd drive in every system, that does nightly rsyncs.
2 - rsync to a storage server for daily, weekly and monthly backups.

The 2nd drive is a premium feature as it allows us to boot up from it in case the 1st one is down.

[Amish_Geek]

I dont have much set for backups right now, but in the works is planned a backup server, that will include backing up to multiple hard drives (rsync) along with a DVD burner which will be used to burn data to dvd discs on a weekly basis.

[cdgcommerce]

Just make sure, whichever backup method you use, that you also periodically check the -integrity- of the backups that you have.

I.e. you will want to setup some kind of a rotation scheme in case the tape or HD or data that gets backed up is garbled, you can go back to an earlier version that has its full file integrity.

[The Prohacker]

We have a 2nd drive that is mounted at time of backup and then umounted at the end.. 3 times a week they are transfered off site to a seperate server...

[thedavid]

Originally posted by jsong

Get 2 HDs and use one as backup disk?
Rent two dedicated servers and ftp one to another?

1 backup server to 3 dedicateds that host sites, and we rsync (mirror) the files nightly. From the backup server we download critical files like server configs every day to a local server.

Used to do the second hard drive thing in the servers themselves, but it does decrease the safety in case the server sets itself on fire or a smart hacker cracks in. Anyway, that's why we went that way. There's pluses and minuses to nearly every method. Though othellotech has a good setup, I'd say.

-David

[pmabraham]

Greetings:

We have co-located servers, and use an Iomega NAS for daily backup.

Thank you.