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Storage and Backup advice
Hello,
I'm in the market for a backup solution.
Pardon my ignorance, but I'm searching for the best solutions to backup my servers. I've inherited a small High School network environment and there is no real DR solution in place.
I have:
3 ESXi 4.1 hosts with 25 vms on,
2 - 2TB NAS (Iomega StorCenter Pro NAS ix4-200r, Netgear ReadyNAS 2100 v2) and,
4 physical servers (not vital)
Currently, we have a 500GB Barracuda Bkup server that offsites our users files, PDC and Exchange (not message level). Also, there are some month old copies of VDR 2.0 backups around, but VDR is no longer taking new backups.
I have around 12k to play with, I'm wondering what my options are.
Here's some of the things I'm considering.
SAN:
Dell MD3200i with 7TB on 7.2k SAS drives
Lefthand refurb P4300 G2 7.2TB SAS Starter (at 14k this is already out of my budget)
NetApp (way out of my budget, but I'm told the best choice)
InforTrend EonStor DS (low end SAN)
Backup:
Veeam (expensive and not for physical servers, but I'm told the best choice)
CommVault
Acronis
I was ready to get a SAN to run my vms on, but I guess I thought I'd see much better performance and some storage folks told me I wouldn't notice much of an increase. So, now I'm wondering if I wouldn't be better off spending my money elsewhere (Veeam) and getting a low end SAN. End of the day, I just want a stable DR environment.
Thanks.
I'm in the market for a backup solution.
Pardon my ignorance, but I'm searching for the best solutions to backup my servers. I've inherited a small High School network environment and there is no real DR solution in place.
I have:
3 ESXi 4.1 hosts with 25 vms on,
2 - 2TB NAS (Iomega StorCenter Pro NAS ix4-200r, Netgear ReadyNAS 2100 v2) and,
4 physical servers (not vital)
Currently, we have a 500GB Barracuda Bkup server that offsites our users files, PDC and Exchange (not message level). Also, there are some month old copies of VDR 2.0 backups around, but VDR is no longer taking new backups.
I have around 12k to play with, I'm wondering what my options are.
Here's some of the things I'm considering.
SAN:
Dell MD3200i with 7TB on 7.2k SAS drives
Lefthand refurb P4300 G2 7.2TB SAS Starter (at 14k this is already out of my budget)
NetApp (way out of my budget, but I'm told the best choice)
InforTrend EonStor DS (low end SAN)
Backup:
Veeam (expensive and not for physical servers, but I'm told the best choice)
CommVault
Acronis
I was ready to get a SAN to run my vms on, but I guess I thought I'd see much better performance and some storage folks told me I wouldn't notice much of an increase. So, now I'm wondering if I wouldn't be better off spending my money elsewhere (Veeam) and getting a low end SAN. End of the day, I just want a stable DR environment.
Thanks.
ASKER
Thanks for the comment hanccocka.
So, you would just worry about the backups and not a SAN?
So, you would just worry about the backups and not a SAN?
SAN gives you shared storage higher availability, but you will also need to step up to VMware HA?
how much VM downtime can the school afford?
if you have a SAN you still to back it up somewhere?
two HP P2000 series?
how much VM downtime can the school afford?
if you have a SAN you still to back it up somewhere?
two HP P2000 series?
ASKER
We have VMware HA turned on, but without vMotion storage.
2 HP P2000s would be nice, could you ship them here? lol
2 HP P2000s would be nice, could you ship them here? lol
12k should get you two P2000s with SAS disks
I would investigate Veeam, Unitrends, AppAsure and a single P2000, use this for primary storage, backup to existing NAS
I would investigate Veeam, Unitrends, AppAsure and a single P2000, use this for primary storage, backup to existing NAS
hanccocka recommendations are always good here are a few other options too.
We use and recommend PHD Virtual they have made a lot of improvements over the last year. The price point is pretty good too. We have also found Thecus NAS like the N7700 v2 Pro or the N8900 Pro as good targets.
The P2000 has a nice price but if you can spend a little more the P4300 gives you many more options. It will be about 2x to 2.5x the price of the P2000 but it is worth it if you can get it into you budget.
We use and recommend PHD Virtual they have made a lot of improvements over the last year. The price point is pretty good too. We have also found Thecus NAS like the N7700 v2 Pro or the N8900 Pro as good targets.
The P2000 has a nice price but if you can spend a little more the P4300 gives you many more options. It will be about 2x to 2.5x the price of the P2000 but it is worth it if you can get it into you budget.
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ASKER
Thanks so much for all the comments. I'll close this question today. Just wanted to post my thinking. Still muddy though it is.
Veeam 6.5
Dell MD3200i, cons being no RAID 10, security and not able to do 10GbE
Also, thinking of just going with another high end NAS to save money.
Any final thoughts. Thanks again.
Veeam 6.5
Dell MD3200i, cons being no RAID 10, security and not able to do 10GbE
Also, thinking of just going with another high end NAS to save money.
Any final thoughts. Thanks again.
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Veeam Backup and Replication v6.5
http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-backup.html
It's one of the Best Products, but it's being caught up by a few others' which also Backup Physical Servers, which Veeam does not.
AppAssure
http://www.appassure.com/ - Number 1 Backup and VMs and Cloud
Unitrends
http://www.unitrends.com/ - a good vRecovery Backup Appliance.
Both use appliances, we setup the VM Appliances, on Iomega (NFS or iSCSI) or HP MSA (iSCSI), and the VMs are Backed Up onto the VM Appliance which is housed on a seperate NAS or SAN in another building.