Backup solution advice needed

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roddyp

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Hi, I need some help with my backups...

My current backup routine consists of using BACKUP as supplied by MS on my 2003 SBE server. It runs daily, and then once a week i copy this backup onto my removable device and take this home.

Problem is if the server dies or frys my backup is a week old.

I tried backing up directly to the removabe device but as my backup is 80gigs the backup never finished as the tranfer rate is too slow when backing up.

My idea is this. Let the backup run normally onto a hard drive installed on the server. This takes about 3-5 hours to run. Then find a piece of software that will, every day at a set time, copy this .bak file onto my removable device. (this takes 2 hours). I will then have two removalbe devices which i will simply rotate on a daily basis.

What is need is this software that can copy these backup files on a daily basis from my server on my portable HDD. No input required from me.

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks

Roddy
 
Take a look at Mirrorfolder.

If the licence fees put you off, look at SyncServer instead.

I use mirrorfolder to mirror/copy the data to a backup server on which I do a daily backup to tape. As the data is current, there is no need to copy anything over, I just run the tape backup software.

You can also use mirrorfolder to backup to your removable driver - but 80Gb's will take a while to backup, but once it is done, the sync process should be quicker.

I backup 550Gb's of data daily, feel my pain. It sucks.
 
This takes about 3-5 hours to run. Then find a piece of software that will, every day at a set time, copy this .bak file onto my removable device. (this takes 2 hours).
Click to expand...

For Windows to do the same I use Backup4All pro. (http://www.backup4all.com/) It is commercial software, but it does everything you need and more (emails reports, incremental backup etc etc)

Otherwise, try Deltacopy. (http://www.aboutmyip.com/AboutMyXApp/DeltaCopy.jsp) It is basically rsync for Windows and can do incremental backup.
 
The_Librarian said:
Take a look at Mirrorfolder.

If the licence fees put you off, look at SyncServer instead.

I use mirrorfolder to mirror/copy the data to a backup server on which I do a daily backup to tape. As the data is current, there is no need to copy anything over, I just run the tape backup software.

You can also use mirrorfolder to backup to your removable driver - but 80Gb's will take a while to backup, but once it is done, the sync process should be quicker.

I backup 550Gb's of data daily, feel my pain. It sucks.
Click to expand...

Using either mirrorfolder or sync sever is it possible to run the backup while the files are in use?

I need to backup a DVR Sever (for cctv), but I cannot close the program as it needs to run 24/7
 
mh348 said:
Using either mirrorfolder or sync sever is it possible to run the backup while the files are in use?

I need to backup a DVR Sever (for cctv), but I cannot close the program as it needs to run 24/7
Click to expand...

Mirrorfolder can be run in RAID-1 configuration - it will be able to mirror open files such as databases.

A word of warning though - mirroring VM's (virtual machines) is a no-no as it won't work. I tried to mirror a virtual WindowsXP PC on a windows2k3 server, and all it did was pull the server down so that it's next to useless. :o

The trial version of Mirrorfolder can be downloaded here - 30 days' trial should be enough to test it thoroughly :)

Also - I have seen that NTBackup (the backup utility which is bundled with Windows) does not have decent data compression. Other, newer programs will have better data compression (and encryption).
 
Last edited:
Oh - do make sure to verify that you can actually recover data from the backup. No good to have a backup strategy in place and bits 'n bytes gets backed up, but when you want to restore, you can't...
 
roddyp said:
Any ideas anyone?
Click to expand...

Keep your current backup strategy but replace the USB enclosure with one that has esata. It will offer the portability of a removable HDD, with the performance of a local HDD....
 
get yourself NAS

I use a HP 3-in-1 Docking stating as a NAS server (not for backups though, i have BackupExec 10d with 800GB SDLT's)

I sturggle to find a NAS housing for a couple of HDD, so you could also find one of those MVIX boxes that has FastEthernet port. It's portable and has the speed of Ethernet.

Anybody know where one can source these bare NAS boxes? Nothing fancy.


Alternatively you could do Incremental backups. Take a full backup on Friday, and then come M,T,W,T, you do an incremenatal backup and then the full one on Friday. only issue if that if you need to restore, you gotta restore the last Friday, and then each day until the day you want it. Or just get a Backup Server with a back up tape. Backup over night, and remove the tapes in the morning to off-site store (car)
 
Also look at buying and external drive case that has an e-sata feature.

I used to, (before windows XP SP3 broke my motherboard's RAID facilities,) run my main drive drive and 2 external drives with e-sata cables as part of a RAID mirror set.

The beauty of this setup is that I would simply unplug the external e-sata enabled hard-drive out, and then plug in the other one, the motherboard RAID software would automatically rebuild the mirror on the external hard drive, and then keep it up to date automatically.

I have not found a better solution, and am currently using GFI Backup which works but ... that RAID mirror was the Ideal solution.
 
Why not get a PCI or PCI Express RAID card and setup your PC like that again?
 
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