Re: OT: Backup Strategies
This WebDNA talk-list message is from 2007
It keeps the original formatting.
numero = 69264
interpreted = N
texte = Clint Davis wrote: > We're a small ad agency with 15 employees. We have a mix of OS X 10.4 & > Windows XP computers. We're currently using a DLT8000 drive with Retrospect > 6 and doing a differential backup on all the systems each night. We just use > tapes until they're full, and we only reuse tapes every 3 years or so. I > want to move to a more efficient, sensible backup strategy like GFS > (grandfather-father-son). > > I'm concerned about data safety in case of fire, but I also need to restore > data quickly in case of a drive failure or file deletion. Does the scenario > below make sense in this case? > > * 5 Weekday tapes for incremental backup (Sons - to be rotated weekly) > * 3 Saturday tapes for differential backup (Fathers - to be rotated monthly) > * 1 Sunday disk for full backup (Grandfather - to be rotated annually) > * Only one tape would be kept onsite at a time Clint, Back in the day, I used to manage a print department about that size. I would suggest a few key things to consider. 1.) Workstation / Server philosophy. I can't tell from your post for sure, but I thought I'd bring this up in case it wasn't something you guys had fully committed to... Are you guys backing up all the workstations as well? If yes, I would suggest to treat your workstations as only "workstations" and to only backup your server/s. With GB+ networks these days, you can do work directly on the server. My point is that there is no need to store things on the individual workstations and it makes it simple to do backups... maybe you do this already. 2.) Start with a RAID system on your sensitive server/s. (choose the RAID of your liking). This makes it easy to cover drive failures instantly. http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/ are my favorite drives, but there are too many RAID solutions out there to really discuss in detail. 3.) Your GrandFather to son system sounds pretty good... I would just add to keep a copy off site at all times... so if your building burnt to the ground, you'd have your client's info safe. The last thing I would broach is something kind of non-standard that I absolutely loved. Retrospect has the ability to back-up to a file. I really like that. I bought high-speed, high-quality firewire HD's. I made automated scripts that would safely create file sizes within the filesystem's guidelines. It was a bit of work setting up the scripts, but when they were set up, it was the easiest thing in the world. No changing tapes and no real maintenance except labeling the hard drives with tape and a sharpie. It was also quite a bit less expensive (especially in the long run). I can't remember the exact strategy that I created, but it was something like your system. I think we had daily backups that alternated between two HD's. (I think they stored up to 3 months of daily b/up's if I remember right). We then had one (or two) periodical HD's that would rotate off-site. Just some ideas. The HD's worked most excellent. We had Retrospect on a dedicated machine hooked up to the network via GB ethernet and with all the volumes loaded to that machine. The HD's were attached to the same machine locally via firewire. The scripts started in the evening and successfully ran just about all night. We *did* back up one or two workstations periodically via the same manner as well. Donovan -- =o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o DONOVAN D. BROOKE EUCA Design Center <- Web Development (specializing in eCommerce),-> <- Desktop Publishing, Print Consulting, Labels -> <-Glass Products, off-hand Classes/studio rental-> PH:>(608) 835-2476 TALK:>http://artglass-forum.com WEB:> http://www.euca.us & http://www.egg.bz =o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o ------------------------------------------------------------- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list
. To unsubscribe, E-mail to: To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to Web Archive of this list is at: http://webdna.smithmicro.com/
Associated Messages, from the most recent to the oldest:
Clint Davis wrote: > We're a small ad agency with 15 employees. We have a mix of OS X 10.4 & > Windows XP computers. We're currently using a DLT8000 drive with Retrospect > 6 and doing a differential backup on all the systems each night. We just use > tapes until they're full, and we only reuse tapes every 3 years or so. I > want to move to a more efficient, sensible backup strategy like GFS > (grandfather-father-son). > > I'm concerned about data safety in case of fire, but I also need to restore > data quickly in case of a drive failure or file deletion. Does the scenario > below make sense in this case? > > * 5 Weekday tapes for incremental backup (Sons - to be rotated weekly) > * 3 Saturday tapes for differential backup (Fathers - to be rotated monthly) > * 1 Sunday disk for full backup (Grandfather - to be rotated annually) > * Only one tape would be kept onsite at a time Clint, Back in the day, I used to manage a print department about that size. I would suggest a few key things to consider. 1.) Workstation / Server philosophy. I can't tell from your post for sure, but I thought I'd bring this up in case it wasn't something you guys had fully committed to... Are you guys backing up all the workstations as well? If yes, I would suggest to treat your workstations as only "workstations" and to only backup your server/s. With GB+ networks these days, you can do work directly on the server. My point is that there is no need to store things on the individual workstations and it makes it simple to do backups... maybe you do this already. 2.) Start with a RAID system on your sensitive server/s. (choose the RAID of your liking). This makes it easy to cover drive failures instantly. http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/ are my favorite drives, but there are too many RAID solutions out there to really discuss in detail. 3.) Your GrandFather to son system sounds pretty good... I would just add to keep a copy off site at all times... so if your building burnt to the ground, you'd have your client's info safe. The last thing I would broach is something kind of non-standard that I absolutely loved. Retrospect has the ability to back-up to a file. I really like that. I bought high-speed, high-quality firewire HD's. I made automated scripts that would safely create file sizes within the filesystem's guidelines. It was a bit of work setting up the scripts, but when they were set up, it was the easiest thing in the world. No changing tapes and no real maintenance except labeling the hard drives with tape and a sharpie. It was also quite a bit less expensive (especially in the long run). I can't remember the exact strategy that I created, but it was something like your system. I think we had daily backups that alternated between two HD's. (I think they stored up to 3 months of daily b/up's if I remember right). We then had one (or two) periodical HD's that would rotate off-site. Just some ideas. The HD's worked most excellent. We had Retrospect on a dedicated machine hooked up to the network via GB ethernet and with all the volumes loaded to that machine. The HD's were attached to the same machine locally via firewire. The scripts started in the evening and successfully ran just about all night. We *did* back up one or two workstations periodically via the same manner as well. Donovan -- =o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o DONOVAN D. BROOKE EUCA Design Center <- Web Development (specializing in eCommerce),-> <- Desktop Publishing, Print Consulting, Labels -> <-Glass Products, off-hand Classes/studio rental-> PH:>(608) 835-2476 TALK:>http://artglass-forum.com WEB:> http://www.euca.us & http://www.egg.bz =o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o ------------------------------------------------------------- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list . To unsubscribe, E-mail to: To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to Web Archive of this list is at: http://webdna.smithmicro.com/
Donovan Brooke
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