Tape Drive or Something Else? Please opine.
phuschnickens
Beverly Hills, Michigan Member
hey guys,
I work for a small publishing company. We backup the most important files to a PC and create a 31gb file every nite at 3 am (Acronis Software). I take this offsite via external hard drive. I NEED to start archiving the backups (have a backup for 4/1/08; 5/1/08; 6/1/08 etc.) so if I accidentally mess up the external hard drive by setting it on my gigantic electromagnet, I can go back a month.
Now, I have thought about using HD DVDs, or Blu Ray, or Tape or Hard Drives. Can someone please help me with their opinions?
If anybody has any other ideas to help with our backup technique... I'd love to hear it. Thank you!
phu
I work for a small publishing company. We backup the most important files to a PC and create a 31gb file every nite at 3 am (Acronis Software). I take this offsite via external hard drive. I NEED to start archiving the backups (have a backup for 4/1/08; 5/1/08; 6/1/08 etc.) so if I accidentally mess up the external hard drive by setting it on my gigantic electromagnet, I can go back a month.
Now, I have thought about using HD DVDs, or Blu Ray, or Tape or Hard Drives. Can someone please help me with their opinions?
If anybody has any other ideas to help with our backup technique... I'd love to hear it. Thank you!
phu
0
Comments
Alternatively backup to seperate network attached machine that is only acting as a backup server. Have it backup to it in multiple archives then you back the most current image to your external drive and take that home.
Backing up to optical drives is only a stop gap as you will likely - and quickly exceed the capacity and you don't want to have to start dealing with multiple optical drives per backup and then storing them and what not - just not practical.
Tape drives will certainly do what you want but know that a typical external drive is going to be in the $1000 range (for your current data needs) but if you look at future scaling you can spend $5000 easy. Then the tapes themselves are in the $30 - $150 range and you'll want a minimum of 12 tapes to do it correctly.
This was the first solution I thought of after reading your problem.
I work for a medium sized company and previously worked for a 'hired gun' managed services company. All of them are trending away from tape drives whenever possible, due to increased initial cost, media costs, and the inevitible "wtf happened to Acronis/Backup Exec" errors and device problems. It sounds like a couple external drives taken offsite in a cycle would suffice. You could even keep one drive connected at all times for incremental, and do a 2 drive rotation for a weekly full backup done as separate jobs off the incremental's schedule.
I think there are now two more concerns that a good person backing up would have (I've been a naughty backer upper):
1) Being sure to consistently follow the backup routine. (Now this will include archiving and taking offsite, putting media in firesafe boxes, locking them, etc.). Do this on a set schedule.
2) Being sure to consistently verify the data by checking that it exists and can be restored. Do this on a schedule.
Any ways to easily verify the data besides restoring random files using acronis then open those files using their native program?
Any good ideas for sticking to a set schedule for something like... bringing a hard drive to work once a month (it's hard enough to do it every Tuesday... I actually trained myself to do it), but to do it the last Tuesday of every month when I wake up at 7:00?!? Then sticking to the schedule of restoring the data and checking it? Sounds difficult.
Once again, your ideas are appreciated.. Thanks.
phu
As for testing your backups I'd suggest once a month.
As for verifying the data you have it easy if you are backing up to harddrive. Just run a scan disk on it from time to time - say once a month when you do your test recoveries.
But for you backup drives you don't need anything like that. Just go buy external Harddrives. They are just connecting through USB anyway.