How to Backup? / Which Hardware for storing removable media (HDDs)?
Hi,
at the moment we store our backups on a tape drive.
But: it´s slow, not enough space
We want to store the backups on HDDs.
My idea would be a NAS-System with hotpluggable HDDs.
Acronis should...
fullbackup:
- to disk 1 in week 1
- to disk 2 in week 2
- to disk 3 in week 3
- to disk 4 in week 4
incrementalbackup:
- to disk 5 in every second week (starting first week)
- to disk 6 in every second week (starting second week)
possibly archivebackup:
- to other disks (if needed) every 3 month
so i´ve got data for at least 4 weeks (its ok for us).
it´s important for us to replace the hdds every week. so the nas-system should only have 2 disks at the same time plugged in (one for full, one for incremental backups) the backup-hdds should be stored in a safe outside the building...
is this a realistic scenario?
how do i with acronis?
which type of hardware would you prefer?
what is the best way to connect the nas? (NFS / SMB / iSCSI)?
thank you very much!
regards Holger
Sounds like you need to hire a system consultant. The short answer is that yes it can work, folks on this forum use hot-swap drives for backups.
Also, you backup scheme sounds unnecessarily complicated. The simpler it is the more useful it can be in the long run. Why not just make full backups till the disk(s) fills, then copy one or two backups to DVD or whatever archive medium you like. A problem with using tape for archiving is whether the tape read-er/writer will be obsolete when you go back several years to restore a backup. I've seen this happen a number of times.
You don't mention roughly how much data you are backing up.
I'm not certain how your incremental disk works. Is it storing a full and then building incrementals on the full for every day of the week or is it doing incrementals based on the the full done on the other disk? If the latter is the case then it will be a bit more complicated to manage.
If this is important business data then you might be wise to get an expert to set things up. It is surprising how "holes" can appear in a backup scheme that looks good. You can probably find lots of info on backup schemes on the web - there have been lots of papers, some quite complex, written on the subject.
My main point is to remember that if the full that incrementals are based on goes bad for any reason then all the incrementals are useless. Also, if there is a bad incremental in the chain then it and all incrementals later in the chain are useless. Fortunately it appears your scheme only has about a week of incrementals being done on each full rather than many more.
I don't know if you are planning to physically remove the drives after each backup run but it is a good idea since a lightning strike or similar could wipe them and the systems that were backed up out in a single blow.
Storing the backups outside the building in a safe is very good. Just make sure that if the building and all your files in the building are destroyed that what you have outside the building is current enough to get you running again.
I agree with Scott that you should copy the backups to different media at some interval. An expert may criticize your plan as not having diversity of media in other words if something goes wrong with the disk system it can negatively affect all your backups. Not likely but....
If you do copy your archives to another disk or another media make sure the TI validation routine can validate the archive. If you write to a DVD with a fingerprint on it or a HD with a bad sector you are unlikely to know there is a problem until you either validate or go to use the archive.
As is frequently said, the only way you know if your backup is any good is to pretend you've lost your system and do a complete restore to a blank disk. In some organizations this can be very difficult to do because of required server uptimes, etc but it is very true. With TI it is imperative the rescue CD which is Linux has the proper support for your NAS system so you must test a recovery using it if you are planning on being able to restore the OS. If you are dealing with a data only backup then you likely can do a recovery within Windows if the system is still intact.
I don't know how big of an operation you are backing up but while you are setting this up just keep asking yourself, "What will I tell the boss, the employees, my customers, if I can't get back their files?".