Searching For A Reliable Backup System? 24
InfoSec asks: "We run a great deal (read all) of our current business on Linux, and we have found that tape backup is far too unreliable for our purposes. We have used Quantum DLT 7000s (two of which died), and we have two VXA drives (11 hours to restore three tarballs). Is there a better solution?"
forget Travan too =) (Score:1)
Drives die within about 6-12 months, and tapes die in a few months. I'm praying i can get better life with some 12/24 DDS-3 HP drives. Seems to work pretty good on the main fileserver, but then again, that's a bit better controlled environment than what the Travan's are mis-operating in.
Re:forget Travan too =) (Score:1)
Backup programs ? (Score:1)
We did try various software:
- tar: has problems when tape is full. not easy to restore single files
- arkeia: strange interface, need to buy costly updates regular
- tapeware: has problems with hardware compression
- bru: had some problems I forgot
are there any GOOD backup solutions for linux out there ????
Samba Information HQ
Redundant tape arrays (Score:3)
So use redundancy. RAIT is the tape equivalent of RAID for disks. Basically, your data is written across an array of tapes with varying amounts of redundancy (from simple parity, all the way up to mirrored ECC stripes, depending on how much you want to spend :-).
There uses to be a CLARiiON [clariion.com] DLT array, but
since EMC's buyouy of Data General, that seems to have been discontinued.
Still, there are plenty of other suppliers of tape arrays.
Here's one [adic.com] from Adic, and
here's one [compaq.com] from Compaq.
Re:forget Travan too =) (Score:2)
And yes, i've heard ArcServe is evil =)
I'm still using the backup that comes with NT, mainly cause every company wants far too much money for their NT Server backup software.
Re:Backup programs ? (Score:3)
We use it here to backup our Unix stuff and it rarely needs poking; it just chugs away in the background and the only intervention we have to do is change tapes every day (which you'll get on any backup system without a tape array).
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Re:Backup programs ? (Score:1)
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This is Not a Flame (TINAF) Post (Score:2)
What I want to know is - remember that TINAF (This is not a flame) post - what's so wrong about Arcserver?
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All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Re:Backup programs ? (Score:1)
the Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver, is a backup system that allows the administrator of a LAN to set up a single master backup server to back up multiple hosts to a single large capacity tape drive. AMANDA users native dump and/or GNU tar facilities and can back up a large number of workstations running multiple versions of Unix. Recent versions can also use SAMBA to back up Microsoft Windows 95/NT hosts.
kludge works (Score:1)
Re:Strange? (Score:1)
While I really can't stand ARCserveIT, I do like the Overland Unit. The drives and the tapes have proved to be highly reliable and easy to use. ARCserveIT might not be so bad if I was only backing up NT servers.
I would have preferred to stick with AMANDA [amanda.org]. While AMANDA can be a bit of a bear to get running, of course this was my first install, it is highly reliable and stable. Support from the developers and users was always timely and helpful. One of the many things to like about AMANDA is that in the event of a catastrophe that native Unix utils (tar, gzip, dump, ufsdump, etc.) can be used to recover the data from the tapes.
Re:kludge works (Score:1)
AIT-1 (Score:1)
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Re:Backup programs ? (Score:1)
It is also commercial and expensive, but then, losing your data has a price tag too.
I find it useful (weekly backup amount some 400G).
Re: (Score:1)
ArcServ vs Retrospect (Score:1)
i've been forced to have it installed on my NT Server by the powers that be, and i don't like it one bit.
It's top heavy, installs all kind of shite on the system and, well, i just do not like it one bit.
If you are looking for good quality, ease of configuration and _most importantly_ ease of restoration, look no further than Retrospect from Dantz [dantz.com], they've even got a free 30 day trial version there.
I've used it in an environment where the DAT backup was long-term offline storage of high res images, and it's simply the easiest software i've used.
for hardcore users, it may not have all the features of something like ArcServ, but for day-to-day use, and sheer ease of administration, you can't beat it
-- kai
duh (Score:1)
What are you *doing* to those poor drives? (Score:1)
Drives die within about 6-12 months, and tapes die in a few months.
whatinthehell are you people *doing*? clean those drives on a weekly basis, retire you tapes after xx hours of use, and you'll be fine. And for gods sake, using another box for backups is *fine* - until your entire site burns to the ground, and your whooptedoo backup system with it. kids these days.
Re:What are you *doing* to those poor drives? (Score:1)
i have enough trouble getting them to send me the monthly tapes. environmental concerns is a major thing to consider
Re:What are you *doing* to those poor drives? (Score:1)
i've had that problem. make sure that the remote site guys have written procedures to follow - and a number to call if anything untword happens. have your senior boss person speak to the senior boss person at the remote site. impress upon both of them that if *they* won't follow your written SOP, then when *their* data goes south, it's going to be a long time to recover. write up a FAQ detailing *how* long it takes to recover, and the revenue lost.
Seriously, *they* don't really see why they are doing what you ask, they don't care. But they do speak 'downtime' and revenue lost, and they *must* understand that you can't wave a magic wand and make it better . .
Re:What are you *doing* to those poor drives? (Score:1)
I had one lady at work, refused to let me replace a 1.2 and 1.0 gig drive, even when i told her she was going to lose data on them, within a year or two. She's the plant manager, so it's very hard to override her(short of sneaking in when she's not in the building, and doing it anyways, she wouldn't notice the difference). I'm pretty much forced to VNC my way in at midnight or so from home, for any routine maintenance that has to be done.
Anyways, hard drive died. She loses data, bigtime. Claims I never told her i wanted to replace the drives, and furthermore, claims I tried to replace the drive, but couldn't(???) Then on top of that, tries to send the drive away for data recovery, when I told her it wouldn't do any good(bits were randomly flipped throughout the filesystem)
I just spent 17 hours rebuilding the CEO's machine at the office, bad hard drive. Due to bad backup procedures, and to pre-existing hardware issues, it took longer than it should have.
<RANT>
(THANKS MATROX FOR THE BUG IN THE G400 BIOS THAT PREVENTS THE DAMN MACHINE FROM SHUTTING DOWN WITHOUT A BSOD, I ALWAYS WANTED TO RUN SCANDISK EVERYTIME I REBOOT!)
</RANT>
It's not fun. Takes less time to rebuild from scratch, than to try and salvage data off a dying hard drive. With a proper smbtar, i can have the machine back up and running within 20-30 minutes.
Yet, we're not likely to do anything about it. Frustrating how upper management will refuse to do anything, until something happens, and then it's a half-assed measure, implemented badly.
Spend the money now, get something that works, instead of spending even more money on the overtime for your overworked tech's. It's less stressful on them. <grin> And that's not even counting the value of the data...
Re:What are you *doing* to those poor drives? (Score:1)
Hmmm. I've had no such problems with my G400, under either Linux or Windows. Strange...
Re:What are you *doing* to those poor drives? (Score:1)
Re:Backup programs...from a guy who does backups (Score:2)
If you're running a large installation of servers, I'd have to recommend Veritas NetBackup [veritas.com]. I'd also have to !recommend Networker, as I've had no end of problems with it in all the places I've worked for anything but the single-server, local drive version.
Pros:
Cons:
I've used Legato Networker, SCH Reels, various dump utilities, and Veritas NBU, and NBU is by far the best product I've seen so far. Any questions, drop me a line