What is a typical scheme for backing up a company's computer files? Right now, we're manually running a tape backup system which I consider unreliable, slow and unwieldy. I'd like to use RAIDed hard drives for backup. What are you using? Thanks, -- J Kimmel www.metalinnovations.com "Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum." - When you have their full attention in your grip, their hearts and minds will follow.
There is backup and various forms of RAID can do that, which duplicate data in various ways. Archiving to a drive or multiple drives in a RAID can do the incremental backups. Lots of companies sell small boxed RAID HD sets, and hot swappable drives is a plus. Bo
We use external USB hard drives. One stays on site and one to a remote location. The hard drive comes with software to backup files.
Hi I use a 2x USB HD and Norton ghost, I take a drive image every night & an incremental every hour, then rotate the drives off site steve
An article I read recently says that magnetic tape is the most reliable 'long term' data storage media. Optical discs are proving to be only for short term backup. But I like many others prefer to use hard drive arrays so everyday backup. In my case I use a mirrored array for my vault and primary data storage as well as backing up nightly to an alternate computers raid array. Not ideal because I don't have an offsite backup but... Zander
Zander, I tend to agree with your method of using hard disks, but would prefer a RAID with hot swappable HDs so they can go off site. My experience with the low end tape systems was that the tape was OK, but the mechanical drives kept eating the ends of the tapes. Admittedly my experience was limited, but I got tired of expensive tape drives and tapes, and then hard drive costs plummeted, so using a hard drive for archiving now seems inexpensive. Bo
Backing up to a HD is certainly the quickest, and probably cheapest method (in some instances), but has certain major drawbacks:- 1. HD's die frequently. If it's fitted in the same box as your server, then you may have to shut down the server to replace it. 2. If the backup HD is in the same box as your server HD, then a spike from a faulty power supply could fry both of them. 3. An office fire or theft could result in you losing both your main and backup HD's in one go - if you're in this scenario, then you might find your company insurance invalid. 4. Tapes are cheap and allow rotation schemes i.e. one tape for each day of the week + another (for example) for alternate Fridays. Why do this? - beacuse if someone accidentally deletes a file or a whole folder, you might not realise it for several days. If you only have a single HD backup, it will already have been overwritten. 5. You can archive tapes at regular intervals in a safe, as an additional guard against accidental file deletion going undetected for long periods. 6. Tapes are small, light and robust for carrying offsite. Regards, John Harland
Nowadays there are small lightweight and very large external hard drives available. The one we use is 300GB, a bit larger than a VHS tape and plugs into the USB port. It is relatively inexpensive and we have two. One is always off site. I am not sure how much you can get on a tape these days. Does it approach 300GB and if so how much does it cost?
John, you made good points, but I'ld like to bring up the issue of HD failures. Other than early failure in the first few hundreds of hours of use for some very small % of all Hard Drives, the use they would get for occassional backup would not likely ever get close to wearing them out or having a failure. Also, just because a HD "goes bad" does not mean the disk is bad. It can still be read, even thought the electronics go kaput, if the data is valuable enough. My next purchase will likely be a hot swappable RAID box, maybe from Wiebe Tech <http://www.wiebetech.com/home.php>. 5 ea 250 gig drives in a box = $2500 (incl tax). The basic advantage of hard drives I saw was that they are cheaper per Gig than the Exabyte tapes I was buying a year or two back. I haven't checked pricing recently. Bo
And whether tape or HD (which both can go bad) the system is just as important so that if there is a media failure it is detectable and does not result in a loss more than one step back.
I agree, and that is why even for an individual designer, that a proper Backup & Archiving to multiple devices, with offsite storage is so important. Someone is going to jump up and complain about a $2500 RAID box price, but how much is it worth to not loose 2, 5 or 10 days work at some future time? I paid $1400 for an Exabyte tape drive and it turned out to be crap, as were the next 2 replacements they shipped to me. No doubt that model was "retired". I'm far happier moving a hard drive back and forth than I am moving tapes (which are FAR more susceptable to electromagnetic corruption than HDs.). Bo
