Recommendation for tape drives
hi, Can someone recommend a tape-drive that works well with Amanda and can backup about 40-60GB. Thx, Gil
Re: Recommendation for tape drives
Gil, Amanda uses native utilities to write the tape drive. If you tell us your OS we might have specific recommendations. Do you have any idea the compressability of your data, and if you want to use compression or not ? Jukebox ? Budget ? On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 12:30:44PM -0500, Gil Naveh wrote: hi, Can someone recommend a tape-drive that works well with Amanda and can backup about 40-60GB. Thx, Gil --- Brian R Cuttler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Computer Systems Support(v) 518 486-1697 Wadsworth Center(f) 518 473-6384 NYS Department of HealthHelp Desk 518 473-0773
RE: Recommendation for tape drives
Some more specifications regarding getting a tape drive: I have a Solaris 9 box which will be the Amanda server I have to back up another Solaris box as well as a few Window2000 boxes. The budget for the tape drive is about 500$ to 1000$ (without Jukebox - too expensive) I would like to use compression, yet I have no idea about the compressibility of the data. My preferences would be: 1) A device that can store 30GB or more. (most important) 2) Easy to configure with Amanda.(very impportant) 3) Reliable (very impportant) 3) Fast to record and recover (less important) thx :) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Brian Cuttler Sent: Friday, December 03, 2004 1:27 PM To: Gil Naveh Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Recommendation for tape drives Gil, Amanda uses native utilities to write the tape drive. If you tell us your OS we might have specific recommendations. Do you have any idea the compressability of your data, and if you want to use compression or not ? Jukebox ? Budget ? On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 12:30:44PM -0500, Gil Naveh wrote: hi, Can someone recommend a tape-drive that works well with Amanda and can backup about 40-60GB. Thx, Gil --- Brian R Cuttler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Computer Systems Support(v) 518 486-1697 Wadsworth Center(f) 518 473-6384 NYS Department of HealthHelp Desk 518 473-0773
RE: Recommendation for tape drives
--On Friday, December 03, 2004 14:20 -0500 Gil Naveh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Some more specifications regarding getting a tape drive: I have a Solaris 9 box which will be the Amanda server I have to back up another Solaris box as well as a few Window2000 boxes. The budget for the tape drive is about 500$ to 1000$ (without Jukebox - too expensive) I would like to use compression, yet I have no idea about the compressibility of the data. My preferences would be: 1) A device that can store 30GB or more. (most important) 2) Easy to configure with Amanda.(very impportant) 3) Reliable (very impportant) 3) Fast to record and recover (less important) thx :) FYI, number three is usually VERY dependant on your tape host as well. If your tape host isn't fast enough the drive will end up waxing the tape, winding back and forth since it can't stream. So make sure whatever tape you get, your HDD where your amanda spool is on can SUSTAIN atleast the tape's speed plus about 50%. One thing you need to think about is cost of media too. I'd tend to recommend either Exabyte's VXA products or favorite vendor's DLT products. I've had great luck with both. DLTs are definitely more expensive, but have been around for longer and are known to work well. YMMV of course.
Re: Recommendation for tape drives
Gil, I should also ask... how many partitions are being backed up ? What are the relative sizes of these partitions ? How often do you hope to backup your data ? For what period of time would you like to retain the data ? ie size of tape pool ? Amanda wants to schedule a level 0 dump each dumpcycle. It will schedule higher level dumps in between the level 0 dumps. I would guess that a DLT drive, even a relatively small DLT 4000 might be enough to backup your data with a pool of 20 days, one/day across a 5 day week. It is what my site did - but I don't think my solution will necessarilly meet your needs, especially since (I believe) $ 1000 is a little tight to purchase a DLT and tape pool. You could use a lower capacity drive, provided it was large enough to backup the largest partition you have - provided someone was in attendance to manually load the next tape, that is manual version of a jukebox. Recall that amanda is not designed to span a DLE across multiple output volumes. On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 02:20:58PM -0500, Gil Naveh wrote: Some more specifications regarding getting a tape drive: I have a Solaris 9 box which will be the Amanda server I have to back up another Solaris box as well as a few Window2000 boxes. The budget for the tape drive is about 500$ to 1000$ (without Jukebox - too expensive) I would like to use compression, yet I have no idea about the compressibility of the data. My preferences would be: 1) A device that can store 30GB or more. (most important) 2) Easy to configure with Amanda.(very impportant) 3) Reliable (very impportant) 3) Fast to record and recover (less important) thx :) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Brian Cuttler Sent: Friday, December 03, 2004 1:27 PM To: Gil Naveh Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Recommendation for tape drives Gil, Amanda uses native utilities to write the tape drive. If you tell us your OS we might have specific recommendations. Do you have any idea the compressability of your data, and if you want to use compression or not ? Jukebox ? Budget ? On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 12:30:44PM -0500, Gil Naveh wrote: hi, Can someone recommend a tape-drive that works well with Amanda and can backup about 40-60GB. Thx, Gil --- Brian R Cuttler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Computer Systems Support(v) 518 486-1697 Wadsworth Center(f) 518 473-6384 NYS Department of HealthHelp Desk 518 473-0773 --- Brian R Cuttler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Computer Systems Support(v) 518 486-1697 Wadsworth Center(f) 518 473-6384 NYS Department of HealthHelp Desk 518 473-0773
Re: Recommendation for tape drives
Gil, Amanda is designed to attempt to load average data across the week. You can coerce it into a weekend full but it isn't the normal method of operations. This will require a large enough single volume to backup all partitions at level 0, rather than distrubuting level 0, 1, 2, across 5 volumes. I've only heard good things about the VXA drives but have no personal experience. Yes, amanda can backup to virtual tapes on disk - but that doesn't really protect you from fire/flood. One of the guys where I work likes to ask How big an asteroid are you expecting ? What level of disaster do you need (mandated ?) to be ready to recover from ? This may be a perfectly reasonable thing to do at your site, or it may not. How many/much of the amanda docs/howto files have you read though ? Brian On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 04:21:12PM -0500, Gil Naveh wrote: Thanks much for your help. I have to convince my manager that it is essential to priorities backing up our systems (including budget) We are planning to perform level 0 backup during the weekend and incremental backups during the week days. Brian - it sounds like a similar situation to your system - a cycle of 5 days incremental backup and weekend full backup. Please note that we have two separated data center so I should also consider the Bandwidth on the network... Regarding your question about how many partition do I have to back up - It is hard to say because I just realized we bought two new servers... I just want to have a backup - so I can sleep better at night... Any thoughts about the drive: EXABYTE 80GB/160GB VXA-2 TAPE DRIVE LCD INT ? (It cost ~950$ sounds like a good deal) Finally, we have a window server with free hard drive storage - about 200GB - my manager think that it would be better to backup our data on those hard drives. Is it feasible to do so with Amanda? and if not recommended, any good arguments are mostly welcome. Thanks again and have a great weekend, Gil
Re: Recommendation for tape drives
(Hmmm, forgot to Cc: this to the list...) As Brian's mentioned, Amanda is designed to handle full and incremental backups on her own (yes, I refer to Amanda as 'her,' I'm one of those 'anthropomorphing' types...). Where, yes, it may be a bit harder for you as a human to track (not being able to say 'Yes, there was a full backup of everyone last X'), Amanda handles this load balancing between full and incremental backups well, is good at her internal management, and when needed for a restoration, she'll tell you what tapes she needs. This allows you to have a collection of tapes of uniform size, rather than keeping track of different sized tapes for different backup levels. Coming from the world of Arkeia, I was of the 'everything has full backup at the same time' opinion myself. But after some gentle drubbing about the head from other folk on the list, I came to understand the Zen of Amanda: 'Let Amanda do her own thing, and all will be well.' I've been happy with how Amanda handles her backups ever since... It really is a question of what you need. While Amanda is great for (imho, ymmv of course) changer devices, desktop backups (to recover from user 'ooops' mistakes, all backups maintained on site), there are some things she may not be the best for (ie. say, server backups, when you need to take tapes off location w/ full backups in case of fire/flood/etc and want to cram as much full backup on as few tapes as possible). While Amanda -can- do this with some tweaking, it isn't necessarily what she was designed for, so another tool designed with that mentality may be better. Me, I run Arkeia for server backups (only 3 servers that absolutely -have- to be backed up off site, so the 'Lite' version fits the bill quite nicely), and Amanda for desktop backups (via Samba mounts) that stay in-house for a 4-week cycle of tapes. Figure out your backup/restore/storage/retention/etc. needs, and work from there. Do you need storage off site? Then maybe software with more strict full and incremental delineations would be better. Are backups going to be kept on site and/or you need instant access to them at any given time? Then maybe the load-balancing of Amanda would be better to help with tape management. Or perhaps a mix of the two... Determine what you need, then find the best tools for those needs. As for tape drives, you asking about a range smack dab between my own experience areas (DDS-3 and -4, and LTO-2), so I can't give you much help there... Best of luck getting it all figured out...
RE: Recommendation for tape drives
--On Friday, December 03, 2004 17:11:18 -0500 Gil Naveh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Brain, I was able to backup into a local hard disk - but I was not sure that it is possible to do so remotely and on a different operating system. You can use smbmount (part of Samba) to mount a Windows share onto your Unix box. Depending on the size of your backups you may encounter performance problems, and I think there may be a 2GB filesize limit. Frank Anyway, per your suggestion it is time to further read from the Amanda docs... Thanks again, gil -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Brian Cuttler Sent: Friday, December 03, 2004 4:37 PM To: Gil Naveh Cc: Brian Cuttler; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Recommendation for tape drives Gil, Amanda is designed to attempt to load average data across the week. You can coerce it into a weekend full but it isn't the normal method of operations. This will require a large enough single volume to backup all partitions at level 0, rather than distrubuting level 0, 1, 2, across 5 volumes. I've only heard good things about the VXA drives but have no personal experience. Yes, amanda can backup to virtual tapes on disk - but that doesn't really protect you from fire/flood. One of the guys where I work likes to ask How big an asteroid are you expecting ? What level of disaster do you need (mandated ?) to be ready to recover from ? This may be a perfectly reasonable thing to do at your site, or it may not. How many/much of the amanda docs/howto files have you read though ? Brian On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 04:21:12PM -0500, Gil Naveh wrote: Thanks much for your help. I have to convince my manager that it is essential to priorities backing up our systems (including budget) We are planning to perform level 0 backup during the weekend and incremental backups during the week days. Brian - it sounds like a similar situation to your system - a cycle of 5 days incremental backup and weekend full backup. Please note that we have two separated data center so I should also consider the Bandwidth on the network... Regarding your question about how many partition do I have to back up - It is hard to say because I just realized we bought two new servers... I just want to have a backup - so I can sleep better at night... Any thoughts about the drive: EXABYTE 80GB/160GB VXA-2 TAPE DRIVE LCD INT ? (It cost ~950$ sounds like a good deal) Finally, we have a window server with free hard drive storage - about 200GB - my manager think that it would be better to backup our data on those hard drives. Is it feasible to do so with Amanda? and if not recommended, any good arguments are mostly welcome. Thanks again and have a great weekend, Gil -- Frank Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sr. Systems Administrator Voice: 512-374-4673 Hoover's Online Fax: 512-374-4501
