Looking for a better backup solution

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odenealr@gmail.com

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We currently have 3 servers that we backup (full) every night on tape.
An exchange server, a file server, and an accounting server. The
constantly growing size of each backup is starting to become a pain to
manage (7 tapes total). There is a total of about 300 GB that is
backed up every night.

The bottom line is: I need a better solution. I would like to look
into a backup to disk solution, but I want to be able to have a fresh
copy off site every night. Right now I take home the previous nights
backup tapes with me every evening.

Is there a better way to do this without spending a whole lot of money
on a remote backup solution?

Thanks for your help.
 
Re: Looking for a better backup solution


<odenealr@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1188502759.735482.11150@e9g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> We currently have 3 servers that we backup (full) every night on tape.
> An exchange server, a file server, and an accounting server. The
> constantly growing size of each backup is starting to become a pain to
> manage (7 tapes total). There is a total of about 300 GB that is
> backed up every night.
>
> The bottom line is: I need a better solution. I would like to look
> into a backup to disk solution, but I want to be able to have a fresh
> copy off site every night. Right now I take home the previous nights
> backup tapes with me every evening.
>
> Is there a better way to do this without spending a whole lot of money
> on a remote backup solution?
>
> Thanks for your help.
>

You could buy a few 600 GByte IDE disks and install them
in external USB cases. You would probably still need to create
a set of tapes once each week for long-term storage.
 
Re: Looking for a better backup solution

Hello,

on the other hand, have you been digging for huge useless data ?
Now it's backup this is full, but then it will be the server themselves,
then the backup again...
Hopeful, you are entitled to manage this :)

You may:
-check and apply mailboxes quota
-check and apply files quota
-Look for files bigger than 50M
-check and apply quota on roaming profile

To chase disk spaces, i would recommend this freeware:
http://windirstat.info/



--
Cordialement,
Mathieu CHATEAU
http://lordoftheping.blogspot.com


<odenealr@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1188502759.735482.11150@e9g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> We currently have 3 servers that we backup (full) every night on tape.
> An exchange server, a file server, and an accounting server. The
> constantly growing size of each backup is starting to become a pain to
> manage (7 tapes total). There is a total of about 300 GB that is
> backed up every night.
>
> The bottom line is: I need a better solution. I would like to look
> into a backup to disk solution, but I want to be able to have a fresh
> copy off site every night. Right now I take home the previous nights
> backup tapes with me every evening.
>
> Is there a better way to do this without spending a whole lot of money
> on a remote backup solution?
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
 
Re: Looking for a better backup solution

This is the $64,000 question.
Basically the mechanics requires tape to get large amounts of data off site.
What you can do:
- use Ultrium tape library (more and faster backup capacity)
- use archiving to move off data that does not change, so you are not
backing it up all the time
- use differentials
- replicate offsite and only go to tape if you require an archive
Anthony,
http://www.airdesk.co.uk




<odenealr@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1188502759.735482.11150@e9g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> We currently have 3 servers that we backup (full) every night on tape.
> An exchange server, a file server, and an accounting server. The
> constantly growing size of each backup is starting to become a pain to
> manage (7 tapes total). There is a total of about 300 GB that is
> backed up every night.
>
> The bottom line is: I need a better solution. I would like to look
> into a backup to disk solution, but I want to be able to have a fresh
> copy off site every night. Right now I take home the previous nights
> backup tapes with me every evening.
>
> Is there a better way to do this without spending a whole lot of money
> on a remote backup solution?
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
 
Re: Looking for a better backup solution

I see these options available:
-upgrade your tape drive and media (expensive)
-reduce your backup size (purge data, exclude files, etc)
-use full and differential backups (keep at least one full and one diff
off-site). Restores would take both data sets and more time. Only good
if less than half the data changes between full's, but usually less than
20% for most companies (your call in the end though).

The last option would be something like this:
-Full, d1, d2, d3, d4, d5, d6 (one job each night)
-offsite: full plus one or more diffs (full+d3 for example)

If only 15% of your data changes each week your daily diff's would fit
on one tape. Do a test one night before your usual full backup to see
how much your diff's will be.

Full - all data
Diff - all changed data since last full
Incremental - all changed data since last backup of any type (make sure
you understand what this means or you will lose your data and your job!)

I'd avoid disk drive based solutions as they tend not to be very
reliable. Also, not all hardware supports USB under Windows safe mode.

odenealr@gmail.com wrote:
> We currently have 3 servers that we backup (full) every night on tape.
> An exchange server, a file server, and an accounting server. The
> constantly growing size of each backup is starting to become a pain to
> manage (7 tapes total). There is a total of about 300 GB that is
> backed up every night.
>
> The bottom line is: I need a better solution. I would like to look
> into a backup to disk solution, but I want to be able to have a fresh
> copy off site every night. Right now I take home the previous nights
> backup tapes with me every evening.
>
> Is there a better way to do this without spending a whole lot of money
> on a remote backup solution?
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
 
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