Backup solution and strategy
Hi all,
At the moment, i have a dilemma for my company backup solution/disaster recovery
We have one server which acts as DC/Exchange/File/Print
Current Data size total: approx 600-700 GB
Weekly backup tape goes for offsite.
No Bare metal restore strategy
My LTO3 tape can't fit all those data.
My thought are:
1. LTO3 autoloader..
2. E-sata
My dilemma are:
1. If i buy LTO3 autoloader, am i going to have a problem to perform Bare Metal Restore?
At the moment, i'm planning to purchase acronis backup and recovery advanced server with "universal restore" option to test it. Not sure any good. any suggestion?
2. With the E-sata, i assume It has any kind of enclosure with multiple HDD/hot swappable so that i can pull the HDD and do an offsite backup??
3. for the speed, i think esata is faster??
Any input for pro and cons please?? any recommendation for bare metal restore software to dissimilar hardware for DC/exchange???
Thanks heaps..
At the moment, i have a dilemma for my company backup solution/disaster recovery
We have one server which acts as DC/Exchange/File/Print
Current Data size total: approx 600-700 GB
Weekly backup tape goes for offsite.
No Bare metal restore strategy
My LTO3 tape can't fit all those data.
My thought are:
1. LTO3 autoloader..
2. E-sata
My dilemma are:
1. If i buy LTO3 autoloader, am i going to have a problem to perform Bare Metal Restore?
At the moment, i'm planning to purchase acronis backup and recovery advanced server with "universal restore" option to test it. Not sure any good. any suggestion?
2. With the E-sata, i assume It has any kind of enclosure with multiple HDD/hot swappable so that i can pull the HDD and do an offsite backup??
3. for the speed, i think esata is faster??
Any input for pro and cons please?? any recommendation for bare metal restore software to dissimilar hardware for DC/exchange???
Thanks heaps..
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Wow! Send us to the WayBack machine Mr. Peabody!
The article that talks about tape taking 20x longer than tape looks to have been written in 2001... that's forever (the other two are 5+ years old). The tape speed it lists is 1MB/sec -- today's tape drives have native speed as high as 140MB/second. So tape has gotten 140x faster.
Disk speed quoted in the article is 12MB/sec. Disk speeds now (single spindles) are typically .. what? 60MB/sec? Maybe 100MB/sec? So disk has only gotten 8x faster.
In the meantime, tape has continued to provide native compression, allowing you to stuff significantly more data on a single cartridge, and now supports WORM (for data that you need to be able to guarantee has not changed once written to tape), and encryption (for data that you don't want anyone outside of the company to be able to get to) -- significant benefits over disk.
The article that talks about tape taking 20x longer than tape looks to have been written in 2001... that's forever (the other two are 5+ years old). The tape speed it lists is 1MB/sec -- today's tape drives have native speed as high as 140MB/second. So tape has gotten 140x faster.
Disk speed quoted in the article is 12MB/sec. Disk speeds now (single spindles) are typically .. what? 60MB/sec? Maybe 100MB/sec? So disk has only gotten 8x faster.
In the meantime, tape has continued to provide native compression, allowing you to stuff significantly more data on a single cartridge, and now supports WORM (for data that you need to be able to guarantee has not changed once written to tape), and encryption (for data that you don't want anyone outside of the company to be able to get to) -- significant benefits over disk.
ASKER
Hi SelfGovern/Wifi,
Thank your for your input..
1 .I just got an info from my supplier that my server (DELL 2900) does not support esata and i don't have any disk space to do a local disk backup.
2. I know it sounds stupid as i never use autoloader before.. To purchase autoloader, do i need to purchase the tape drive as well?
e.g. At the moment, i have internal LTO3 drive. If i want to purchase LTO4 autolader, do i need to upgrade my internal LTO3 drive as well?
3. For the bare metal DR from HP storageworks, does it actually support dissimilar hardware? anyone has used it before??
I'm so confused.. My server runs out of warranty. Therefore, when something goes wrong with the hardware failure or software corruption.. i would like to have something to get it up to minimize downtime..
For software corruption such exchange, AD or windows, i can just depending on the backup. But how about hardware? is bare metal restore reliable?
Sorry if the topic is getting out of the way.. i'm so paranoid with this kind of thing..
Thank your for your input..
1 .I just got an info from my supplier that my server (DELL 2900) does not support esata and i don't have any disk space to do a local disk backup.
2. I know it sounds stupid as i never use autoloader before.. To purchase autoloader, do i need to purchase the tape drive as well?
e.g. At the moment, i have internal LTO3 drive. If i want to purchase LTO4 autolader, do i need to upgrade my internal LTO3 drive as well?
3. For the bare metal DR from HP storageworks, does it actually support dissimilar hardware? anyone has used it before??
I'm so confused.. My server runs out of warranty. Therefore, when something goes wrong with the hardware failure or software corruption.. i would like to have something to get it up to minimize downtime..
For software corruption such exchange, AD or windows, i can just depending on the backup. But how about hardware? is bare metal restore reliable?
Sorry if the topic is getting out of the way.. i'm so paranoid with this kind of thing..
No stupid questions, just chances to learn.
An autoloader will typically have a tape drive installed. You'd buy the autoloader with the tape drive installed. Make sure you get an autoloader with the correct connectivity for your server (SAS or parallel SCSI, probably; some are made with Fibre Channel interfaces, but I'd guess you do not want that). The autoloader would typically be a 2"high, 19" wide, about 2' deep appliance that would sit flat on a tabletop or bread rack and hold a tape drive plus slots for 8 or so tapes, plus a robot for moving the tapes from the slots to the robot automatically as needed for backup jobs.
I believe that the bare metal disaster recovery feature of Data Protector Express is designed for like HW only. Unfortunately, I think that is probably the case with most, if not all, tape backup solutions.
An autoloader will typically have a tape drive installed. You'd buy the autoloader with the tape drive installed. Make sure you get an autoloader with the correct connectivity for your server (SAS or parallel SCSI, probably; some are made with Fibre Channel interfaces, but I'd guess you do not want that). The autoloader would typically be a 2"high, 19" wide, about 2' deep appliance that would sit flat on a tabletop or bread rack and hold a tape drive plus slots for 8 or so tapes, plus a robot for moving the tapes from the slots to the robot automatically as needed for backup jobs.
I believe that the bare metal disaster recovery feature of Data Protector Express is designed for like HW only. Unfortunately, I think that is probably the case with most, if not all, tape backup solutions.
ASKER
Hi SelfGovern,
What is HW?
What is HW?
HW is hardware, as opposed to SW, or software. I'm sorry about the abbreviation!
ASKER
Good point to think about
You may want to read these articles as they bring out some very interesting points concerning both medias and it should help you choose which one is best for you.
http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/testdrive/article.php/3528326
http://www.storagesearch.com/engenio-art2.html
You may also read: Quote from article "The tape drive takes 20 times longer to backup and retrieve data than disk drive."
http://www.storagesearch.com/datazoneart2.html