Re: Tape drives -- Recommendations?
On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 04:39:05PM +0200, Paul Bijnens wrote: > On 2008-10-17 15:23, Greg Troxel wrote: >> Gene Heskett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> >> There is certainly merit in the hard drive approach, but you can lose >> two critical properties if you aren't careful: >> >> full backups offline (not writable by computer) even while making next >> full backup. >> >> full backups taken to a remote location > > I solve these issues by doing backups to an external harddrive. > > USB-2 works reasonably fast, if the amount of data is not too large. I concur. I back up my SOHO network to an external USB HD. I then rotate two more external USB HDs for off-site backup. Backing to the off-site machines is scripted and uses rsync. The two off-site HDs are encrypted with ecryptfs, and the passwords exist in one place. The backup server is a FIT-PC (http://www.fit-pc.com/new/), so my power costs are zilch, five to maybe 15 watts for the FIT-PC and two external HDs (when they're powered up). Try that with your SCSI tape drives. :-) As an extra added benefit, I can do an integrity check on all my "tapes" with "diff -r --brief". It takes a while, but with screen, who cares? Another benefit is that I can also copy my bare metal restore data onto the same off-site HDs, again using rsync and ecryptfs. > > I will be experimenting with eSATA "real soon now". > One of the ideas I have is to make a mirror with LVM of my vtapes > to an external disk for offsite storage. I went with rsync because I know it only copies changes. I don't know whether LVM copies will do that. Also, I can encrypt on the fly while copying to the off-site HDs. I haven't tried that with LVM. > That disk gets exchanged on friday each week, and stored offsite. > Using the USB subsystem makes the server (also small) rather unresponsive. > Only workable in the weekends and nights. I hope eSATA will make > better use of system resources. Interesting. I'm running a diff right now, and top indicates that diff itself is far and away the biggest resource hog. The two USB processes are there but less than diff by two orders of magnitude. Maybe your server has a more CPU intensive USB controller than mine? -- Charles Curley /"\ASCII Ribbon Campaign Looking for fine software \ /Respect for open standards and/or writing? X No HTML/RTF in email http://www.charlescurley.com/ \No M$ Word docs in email Key fingerprint = CE5C 6645 A45A 64E4 94C0 809C FFF6 4C48 4ECD DFDB signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Tape drives -- Recommendations?
On 2008-10-17 15:23, Greg Troxel wrote: Gene Heskett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: On Wednesday 15 October 2008, Dustin J. Mitchell wrote: On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 10:44 AM, Seann Clark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: The other alternative I am looking into is getting a large external case and cramming it full of 1TB hard drives and using that as backup, but I would like a tape system that works well. This option is worth considering. HD's have many fewer moving parts than tapes/drives. Even if the "critical failure" rate is similar, the "annoying failure" rate of tape drives is much higher. Which is to say, they require a lot more fiddling. Dustin I'll back Dustin up on this one. Switching to a hard drive got rid of 99.9% of by backup problems. It Just Works(TM). -- Cheers, Gene There is certainly merit in the hard drive approach, but you can lose two critical properties if you aren't careful: full backups offline (not writable by computer) even while making next full backup. full backups taken to a remote location I solve these issues by doing backups to an external harddrive. USB-2 works reasonably fast, if the amount of data is not too large. I will be experimenting with eSATA "real soon now". One of the ideas I have is to make a mirror with LVM of my vtapes to an external disk for offsite storage. I have been using LTO-2 for several years and have had little enough trouble, although I can't remember if it is very little or zero. Before that I had DDS-3 and that was occasionally annoying but not that bad. I am firmly in the tape camp at least for corporate use. But actually, I still use LTO-2 for offsite storage for our main office; it's only in 2 small offices abroad that I implemented backup to external USB disk. That disk gets exchanged on friday each week, and stored offsite. Using the USB subsystem makes the server (also small) rather unresponsive. Only workable in the weekends and nights. I hope eSATA will make better use of system resources. -- Paul Bijnens, xplanation Technology ServicesTel +32 16 397.511 Technologielaan 21 bus 2, B-3001 Leuven, BELGIUMFax +32 16 397.512 http://www.xplanation.com/ email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** * I think I've got the hang of it now: exit, ^D, ^C, ^\, ^Z, ^Q, ^^, * * F6, quit, ZZ, :q, :q!, M-Z, ^X^C, logoff, logout, close, bye, /bye, * * stop, end, F3, ~., ^]c, +++ ATH, disconnect, halt, abort, hangup, * * PF4, F20, ^X^X, :D::D, KJOB, F14-f-e, F8-e, kill -1 $$, shutdown, * * init 0, kill -9 1, Alt-F4, Ctrl-Alt-Del, AltGr-NumLock, Stop-A, ... * * ... "Are you sure?" ... YES ... Phew ... I'm out * ***
Re: Tape drives -- Recommendations?
Gene Heskett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Wednesday 15 October 2008, Dustin J. Mitchell wrote: >>On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 10:44 AM, Seann Clark >> >><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> The other alternative I am looking into is getting a large external case >>> and cramming it full of 1TB hard drives and using that as backup, but I >>> would like a tape system that works well. >> >>This option is worth considering. HD's have many fewer moving parts >>than tapes/drives. Even if the "critical failure" rate is similar, >>the "annoying failure" rate of tape drives is much higher. Which is >>to say, they require a lot more fiddling. >> >>Dustin > > I'll back Dustin up on this one. Switching to a hard drive got rid of 99.9% > of by backup problems. It Just Works(TM). > > -- > Cheers, Gene There is certainly merit in the hard drive approach, but you can lose two critical properties if you aren't careful: full backups offline (not writable by computer) even while making next full backup. full backups taken to a remote location I have been using LTO-2 for several years and have had little enough trouble, although I can't remember if it is very little or zero. Before that I had DDS-3 and that was occasionally annoying but not that bad. I am firmly in the tape camp at least for corporate use. pgpFez5QC2Z7v.pgp Description: PGP signature
