On Wed, 20 Dec 2000, Matthew J. Brodeur wrote:
> I'm new to this list (about two hours), but I feel the need to start a bit
> of a holy war.
Go right ahead. It has been a long time since we have had one, and my
attempt at a Linux-distro flamewar a couple weeks ago fizzled. :-)
> What would people suggest for a reasonable cost backup solution on a small
> network with a total of around 50GB of data?
Well... you do not define "reasonable cost". Choice of backup solution is
largely a matter of risk and cost-benefit analysis.
You need to ask yourself: How much is my data worth? How much will downtime
cost me? How long do I need to keep archives for? At what interval? How
often does my data change, and by how much?
Do you have different classes of data? If so, ask those questions for each
class of data.
Once you know the answers to those questions, the right solution will
largely choose itself.
> Most of the data is static, so incremental backups would be small.
Can you split the data (and thus, the backups) into static and dynamic
pools, as Paul Lussier suggests?
If not, and you still want to keep your backups to a single night, your
options are pretty limited, and all of them expensive. Only DLT and AIT, and
maybe VXA, have the capacity to backup a 50 GB data set onto a single tape.
If you rule out compression, then AIT is the only one. Or you use an
auto-changer. Any way you look at it, you're talking a fair amount of money.
If, on the other hand, you can separate your data, some new questions come
into play. Namely:
- What is the size of the working (dynamic) data set?
- How often do you want to backup the static data set?
> I have used a VXA-1 drive, and it seems capable enough (33/66GB/tape,
> 6MB/sec). Do others prefer something else? The price/capacity of the VXAs
> seems hard to beat.
The VXAs look very nice, although I haven't tried them myself. My only
worry with them is the single-source, semi-proprietary nature of the
technology. If Ecrix is the only one with the keys to VXA, and they go away
(or turn nasty), what happens to me? (Of course, VXA is hardly the only
backup solution with these problems.)
--
Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Net Technologies, Inc. <http://www.ntisys.com>
Voice: (800)905-3049 x18 Fax: (978)499-7839
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