Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : Best way to backup multiple servers...

[kerplunk]

What is the most efficient and cost effective way to backup the hard drives of about seven co-located servers? When we ask our host about it, they always give us the little eye, big eye, if you know what I mean.

All of our hard drives are RAID 1, but we would like to know how to backup to another server possibly? What about TAPE backup? Etc.

Thanks.

[sailorFred]

How many backups do you want for each server?

If they each are using less than half their disks, currently, back them up to each other.

S1 -> S2
S2 -> S3
S3 -> S4
S4 -> S5
S5 -> S6
S6 -> S7
S7 -> S1

Use rsync on a cron job, if you are OK with only having a single backup of each server.

If you want to get more sophisticated, and you have more disk space, you can have multiple backups of each server, so that if something gets trashed, then backed up to the remote server, you don't lose your good copy.

[dandanfirema]

What we chose to do is to add a backup server to our colocation space. We installed a second "private" network to transfer all of the backups across (gigabit speed). We then use rsync to move the contents of the real servers onto the hard drive of the backup server.

It is my opinion, for smaller amounts of diskspace without alot of history, which I believe is appropriate for hosting, disk based backup is more cost effective than tape. Plus you don't have to pay someone to go change out tapes daily.

[eth00]

If you have the money RAID is nice then also do backups to a remote system. Tape is not even worth considering since drives are so cheap. You can pickup some cheap 200Gb seagate drives for around $100-150 which is a pretty good deal. If you have the money a dedicated backup server is best, as dan posted above a secondary backup only network is a great idea.

Really...it comes down to money. The more you have the more exotic of a system you can get