Topic: Backup Hardware

[Paperguides]

My thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread.

It has given me several things to think about.

1) I need to phase out backup systems using the Iomega drives fairly soon.  The major concerns for my customers are theft of equipment and/or fire.  In both cases the device to restore the data has gone and no new devices are available. I know I can probably get one on ebay but how quickly?

2) The point about proprietary hardware is very relevant. In general I will be thinking very carefully before specifying any backup solution in the future.

3) I looked at ebay and the price of tape hardware is relatively high.  e.g. the backup device is as expensive as the basic server. Is it better to buy new or are these devices reliable enough to go 2nd user?

I already use on-site "off-site" backup i.e. installing a NAS device in another office on the trading estate maybe I should be looking to do this more.

Thanks again for the comments.

Tony

[elmarconi]

My (2 x) 2 cents:

- Use RAID. Might save you from harddisk failures.
- Use multiple portable USB disks. Remember, one backup disk is no backup. Rotate!
- Use both on-site and off-site NAS.
- Use AFFA. Very flexible. Snapshots are essential. Users delete files, and after a month or so they ask...
- Test the disaster recovery once and a while and make perfect notes of it as you tend to forget the little tweaks...

Last: If both the server + buildings with backup NAS and your home with rotated USB disks have all gone up in flames, you probably have something else to worry about... 

[StuC]

I too tend to think in locations, media types (spindles) and recovery time.
Look to increase the first two and reduce the last.
If location 1 media type 1 has flood/fire/theft it should be inconvenient not dramatic, same with location 2 or media type 2.

If your storage needs are not too excessive Affa is just fantastic and having a simple SME install as a virtual machine dedicated to that task it can take little CPU resources until needed.
I'm definitely not saying use that as first line backup but in the event of local hardware failure to keep everyone working it's brilliant.
It can replace the original server after failure in minutes (affa-rise) then you can concentrate on recovering hardware or pulling other backups from off-site storage. Then just use affa to migrate again to the new rebuilt hardware.

Throw a hypothetical meteor at each of your storage locations and then think how long it would take to recover.

[piran]

The major concerns for my customers are theft of equipment and/or fire. In both
cases the device to restore the data has gone and no new devices are available.

Offsite. Any method, any transport, any mechanism... just offsite.

2) The point about proprietary hardware is very relevant. In general I will
be thinking very carefully before specifying any backup solution in the future.

Not just proprietary hardware but technical obsolescence - particularly in the
long term. My magneto-optical (MO) discs were superb. However I burnt out
half a dozen drives (the electronics, nothing mechanical) in fewer years.
Shelves full of (probably) perfect MO discs here ~ nothing to run 'em in.
Pick something VERY "broad". My ancient CDRs are still readable, peer
CDRWs rather less so. Ditto DVDRs even the early 2x iterations read.
A few years back I'd put my expectation into Blu-ray (BD), particularly
the 50GB stuff, but I'm still waiting as BD just not taking off in the
right way. In a decade the current flavours of USB connections may
not be favoured or even technically supported, so consider expected
lifetimes of the actual technology! For massive backups, my usual kind,
I'm considering a shelf full of redundant arrays of inexpensive drives.
No, not RAID, but actual shelves of drives each used like books and
slotted into a workshop bare drive toaster-like slot device. Choosing
the formatted OS is going to be tricky.

3) I looked at ebay and the price of tape hardware is relatively high. 
e.g. the backup device is as expensive as the basic server. Is it better
to buy new or are these devices reliable enough to go 2nd user?

Tape is for corporates ie those who can afford them and for those to whom
that feature set is appropriate. Tape transports are intricate, heads wear out,
tape has all sorts of intrinsic issues. Having said that I used to use tapes in
the last millennium and relied utterly on their effectiveness. Various issues
became insurmountable (cost, data transfer rate, media supply) and that
technology was regretfully dropped. Still have two transports, one from the
early 90s but driver card, supported bus technology and fashion has moved on...

I already use on-site "off-site" backup i.e. installing a NAS device in another office on
the trading estate maybe I should be looking to do this more.

Yes, offsite, with multiple iterations of NAS.

AFFA is excellent, I used to use it intensely, but is it still being maintained?

[mercyh]

I think we need to separate Data Archiving and Data Backup for the purpose of this discussion. If backup jobs are MONITORED EVERY SINGLE DAY, I don't see that backup hard drive failure is such an issue. The failure should be caught on the very first day that it happens. At the moment when this is discovered, you have no backup from the last day but the server is still working fine. The odds that the server"s hard drive will fail on the same day that the backup hard drive fails is long indeed. If this should actually happen and you are rotating drives, you still have yesterdays backup. (add in the odds of this third hard drive failing on the same day as the others and you have a risk level I can live with  )

[piran]

Good point. Some of my backup activity is at the extreme end.
For instance I 'can' generate 25GB (images) in a day's shoot.
Those backups almost inevitably become de facto archives.
Thus backing up almost blurs into archiving. Yes, I would find
and fix a drive issue when found recently ie 'doing backups'.
But searching for an album set a few years later and that drive
issue (if unfound back then etc) in the 'archive' might get serious.
Hiving out, say 25GB 'massive' backup runs, on rotating sets
encompassing an eventual archive gets to be seriously tedious.
So, here, backup logistics must fulfil or appease archive criteria.
The server and workstations get conventional daily 'backups',
with my sort of storage bins it's only a relatively low capacity.
The photographic library stuff gets massive backup/archive runs.

Another part of the discussion probably should include logistics
covering the disposal of that backup/archive hardware's media.
I'm still finding and feeding my old floppy discs through a
heavy duty double action shredder. Sony have announced
they will now stop production ~ so that's it then. Same
shredder does the CDR and DVDr stuff ~ despite the din.
Disposing of the tapes is quite easy but cartridges do
contain an utterly surprising physical unwrapped volume
of tape. I doubt the environmentalists out there would
approve of the eventual disposal procedure but it involves
my enclosed log burning stove... Hard drives have to await
a stoic afternoon's worth of angle grinding manic madness.

[robwellesley]

AFFA is excellent, I used to use it intensely, but is it still being maintained?

We've tested it with Sme 8 and it works, since the samba issue below was 'fixed'

http://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5851

[piran]

We've tested it with Sme 8 and it works, since the samba issue below was 'fixed'

http://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5851

That "it works" does not properly answer "Is it still being maintained?",
so putting it another way " Who is actively maintaining AFFA nowadays?".

[janet]

piran

Plead read available published information,
http://wiki.contribs.org/Affa
Both questions answered on line 1 & 2

> Is it still being maintained?
> Who is actively maintaining AFFA

[piran]

piran

Plead read available published information,
http://wiki.contribs.org/Affa
Both questions answered on line 1 & 2

> Is it still being maintained?
> Who is actively maintaining AFFA

"...actively..."
Please read the history tab.
http://wiki.contribs.org/index.php?title=Affa&action=history

[Stefano]

"...actively..."
Please read the history tab.
http://wiki.contribs.org/index.php?title=Affa&action=history

please explain.. thank you

[piran]

please explain.. thank you

What is it you wish explained?

[Stefano]

What is it you wish explained?

the meaning of you previous post, for example..

IIUC you are saying that affa is not actively maintained.. why?

[piran]

the meaning of you previous post, for example..

IIUC you are saying that affa is not actively maintained.. why?

People, including you, are putting this as my words.
I have asked if AFFA is being actively maintained,
I have not said that is not being maintained.
* I see no activity in the history tab of the wiki.
* Development seems to have stopped at rc4.
* I've had no responses from AFFA's Michael.
Hence my query whether AFFA is actively maintained.
AFFA is EXCELLENT. I used to use it for much work
but have moved my stuff away from relying on it.
Inactive maintenance is not the best news for backups
but is potentially bad for long term archives... backup
methodology being this thread's core discussion topic.