Backup Solutions

[Christopher Browne]

On 8/30/07, Jon Thiele <jthiele-bux5bdj6uGJBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Almost all of my small business clients run the same setup:  CENTOS on their
> file server and flexbackup as backup software to a Seagate STT220000A
> 10/20GB tape drive.  I love these drives.  I've used them almost exclusively
> for the last 8 years.  They are cheap ($200), last 4 or 5 years under normal
> load and easy to use.  However, last week I discovered that I have a
> problem.  A client's tape drive failed and I found out that Seagate/Quantum
> no longer make these drives - in fact, I can't find a single distributor
> (TechData, DirectDial, EMJ) in Canada that has stock...  (Refurbished - yes,
> new - no.)
>
> I'm now looking for a new, long term solution.  I've thought of moving to
> 8GB or 16GB USB RAM drives (reliability problems???), I played with using
> daily USB external hard drives (kind of hard to put in your purse to take
> home every night...), I looked into online backup solutions (most of them
> for some unknown reason want Windows...), someone suggested the IOMEGA REV
> removable hard drive (are they going to be around in 5 years???), I've
> looked at more expensive SCSI drives (large initial cost > $1,200), and I've
> even thought of setting up my own backup site where I would go in every
> night and grab the modified files from each client (do I really want to do
> this???).
>
> So, can I pick your collective brains???  What cheap, offsite, easy-to-use,
> backup solutions do you use for your Linux servers???  Your suggestions are
> appreciated.

The direction that backups have been going has generally been away
from tape, and towards the use of extra disk drives.

Stick a 500GB drive in a USB2 carrier and you have something that can
be rotated offsite periodically.

If that seems fragile, you can get 250GB laptop drives that should be
more robust against light knocks, both being smaller, and specifically
designed for the higher-motion laptop environment.

A 250GB laptop drive is $215 at Canada Computers, and a Vantec NexStar
case is about $20.  It's a bit cheaper for 500GB drives, but they're
obviously more fragile.

The act of having multiple locations for an enterprise gives
redundancy right away, which makes it more reasonable to keep copies
of things at both locations.  The need to keep tapes off-site falls,
considerably; the risks that are big enough to cause both sites to get
destroyed are likely to be company-destroying anyways.
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