Re: backup solution

From: Jean-David Beyer (jdbeyer_at_exit109.com)
Date: 08/27/05 

Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 14:02:30 -0400

John-Paul Stewart wrote:
> mechdan@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>> Dr. Zimmermann wrote:
>>
>>
>>> can someone recommend a good backup solution (either free or commercial)
>
>
> My suggestions would include:
>
> BRU http://www.bru.com/
> BakBone NetVault http://www.bakbone.com/
> Arkeia http://www.arkeia.com/
>
> BRU is what I use myself. BakBone is a product I've just recently heard
> about, so I don't know much. Arkeia I evaluated before choosing BRU.
> Arkeia was a lot more expensive and it's GUI wasn't terribly intuitive
> to me.

I, too, run BRU, but my LAN once had three machines on it, which is pretty
small by most standards. I have an Exabyte VXA-2 on my main machine and a
VXA-2 on the other. The third machine has been given to the deserving poor.
While it is theoretically possible to back up all three machines from the
one with my highest capacity hard drive, I do not choose to do that.
>
> There's also the big boys from Veritas and Legato but since your needs
> are fairly small (10 GB per day and 50 clients isn't a lot) they may
> be more expensive than what you're willing to spend.
>
>>> ~ 50 heterogeneous clients (Linux, OS X, Win XP)
>>> ~ 10 Gb per day
>>> ~ linux backup server
>>> ~ probably LTO-2 tape library ?
>
>
> Why an LTO-2 library for just 10GB per day? You can do that much data
> in under an hour with a much, much cheaper backup system.

My VXA-2 can get 40GBytes (assuming 2:1 hardware compression) on one of
their smallest (V6) tapes and 160 GBytes (2:1 compression assumed again) on
their V23 or X23 tapes. A V6 tape costs around $27 in lots of 1, and an X23
costs around $73 in lots of 1. The X6 tapes (same capacity as V6, but will
not run on a VXA-1 drive) are only about $16 in lots of 1. If you cannot get
everything onto a single tape, Exabyte make various models of automatic tape
changers. VXA drives cost around $1000, but they are available at a discount
on the Internet.

The VXA-3, projected to be released late 2005 will be twice as fast and
double the capacity. The VXA-4, projected to be released sometime in 2007.
is planned to have double the speed and double the capacity of the VXA-3.
The intent is that they are all upward compatable in the sense that a faster
drive can read tapes produced on the slower ones. I know for sure that tapes
written on one machine with a VXA-1 drive can be read with no trouble on the
VXA-2 on the other machine. The VXA-1 is about 4 years old and the VXA-2 is
a bit over a year old now. The only maintenance I have done is to run a
cleaning cartridge through the drives when the amber led flashes.

> (Maybe you
> need the capacity/performance of LT0-2 for weekly full backups or
> something? You don't mention how much data and how large a window you
> have for full backups, nor how often you intend to do them. But from
> what you have said, an LTO-2 library sounds like more money than you
> need to spend.)

My latest backup (early this morning when I was asleep, had the following
results:

Started: Sat Aug 27 01:08:04 2005
Completed: Sat Aug 27 02:07:21 2005
Archive id: 430ff534281d
Messages: 0 warnings, 0 errors
Archive I/O: 6502848 blocks (13005696Kb) written
Archive I/O: 6502848 blocks (13005696Kb) read
Files written: 247635 files (206770 regular, 40865 other)
Files read: 0 files (0 regular, 0 other)
Files skipped: 0 files
Write errors: 0 soft, 0 hard
Read errors: 0 soft, 0 hard
Checksum errors: 0

I.e., in slightly under an hour, it backed up a bit over 13GBytes of data,
and then read it all back and checked it. Call it 13 GBytes/hour
_written and checked_. AFAIK, an LTO-2 is about 8.3x faster than this and
one model drive can take 400GBytes compressed.
>
>> Unless you have a very compelling reason to still use tape
>> backup, backup to hard drives is cheaper, faster, more robust,
>> and far more flexible. Naturally, if you are concerned about
>> a power surge corrupting ALL hard drives at once, you may want
>> to use some removeable hard drives.

Of course, by Murphy's Law, a power surge, lighting strike, home fire, or OS
going mad, will do just that. Are hot swappable hard drives now cheaper than
tape cartridges?
>
> In order for the backup to of any use at all, removable media is a
> *must*. So is having multiple generations of backup available. If your
> lone backup is being over-written with a newer backup at the time of a
> catastrophic failure, you're sunk. It doesn't matter if you're using
> tape or removable hard drives, you need more than one set of backup
> media. Likewise, you need to be able to physically move your backup off
> site (think flooding, fire, etc.).

That is for sure. That is why I have 23 tapes for each machine.

Monday, Tuesday, ..., Saturday
First Sunday, Second Sunday, ..., Fifth Sunday
January, ..., December

This way, if I stupidly mess up or delete a file, and discover it
immediately, I can recover a copy under 24 hours old. If I do not notice for
about a week, I can get one under a week old, and if I do not notice for
almost a month, I can get one under a month old, and if almost a year goes
by, I can get one under a year old. After that, I am out of luck, but I
could keep annual tapes if there were a need for it (like running a business).

I keep all but the current tape in a different room from the computers, and
the monthly tapes in the safe deposit box at the bank. I sure would not want
want to buy 46 hot swappable hard drives or store 24 of them at my bank.
>
> Personally, I find the compelling reasons to use tape are the easy
> ability to have multiple sets of backup media and its portability. 

-- 
  .~.  Jean-David Beyer          Registered Linux User 85642.
  /V\  PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A         Registered Machine   241939.
 /( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey    http://counter.li.org
 ^^-^^ 13:25:00 up 73 days, 7:20, 3 users, load average: 4.22, 4.14, 4.14

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