Charles2008
One of my issues is, that I want to be able to be away from the office for longish periods of time (week +) and not be worrying about backups. I need backups to be as automatic as possible.
The built in sme backup to workstation or the DAR2 and Affa contribs, can backup to local USB disk, and they all do a full backup initially then daily incrementals (if set that way, which I recommend). So the daily backups only use a small amount of space depending what files have changed. A large 1.5Tb or 2Tb USB disk could handle maybe 6 months or a years worth of backups, if your server data size is nowhere near the USB disk size and your daily data changes are not great. It all depends on your circumstances. The point is to do daily incremental backups which will typically only use a small amount of space, so you can then retain many backups on the one disk.
The built in backup to workstation requires you to adhere to the disk swap schedule you have nominated eg weekly or daily, it's not so happy if you swap disks at the wrong time (day) in the cycle, and is designed moreso to swap backup disk on a weekly schedule with daily incrementals in between. That means the same disk is onsite for seven days before being removed off site. It's too risky for me to have no current backup off site for that long.
The issue of non sequential daily backups with the built in backup (& daily disk swapping) really hits when you try to do restores, the system cannot find all the daily sequential backups as they are split on two disks. There is a workaround by renumbering all the backup files on the one disk you want to restore from, but that's a pain in difficult circumstances when you are trying to restore a system quickly from a backup disk.
That model does not suit my backup security needs, so I found the Affa backup to local USB allows me to swap disks on a daily basis without any problem, and I can restore from either disk. Each USB disk is removed off site every day, and cycles between home and office, or a staff members home & office if I am away.
I found I can leave the same USB disk connected for 2 or more days without problem (ie if I or a staff member forget to swap it), then just change it when you remember or when you return to the office after a 3 or 4 day public holiday break.
One area that has been nagging away at me is the Cloud and the possibility of backing up to/from it. I suppose the 'large file size' argument works against that, but perhaps no more so than a remote AFFA back-up box.
Yes it's the same issue, just a different backup system. Big data changes mean the need for big data pipes to the Internet and they are usually very costly.
Affa will continue a incompleted backup the next day, and the next and the next, until it finally finishes the whole backup, eg say 2 or 3 Gb of data change which is too big to complete in a 24 hour period via the net. It just means it takes a few days to completely backup everything that changes, which may not suit the need to have ALL data backed up off site every night.
For example 2Gb per day is 600Gb per month, so you need a generous data allowance plan also with your ISP, and outgoing data is usually much slower than incoming.
We do and will continue to have the occasional (once per quarter or half-year) need to archive large files of photographs (perhaps 2GB +/-). This again lends itself to local storage.
Large data backups once every few months is OK via net, but not so practical when happening daily or every few days.
Have I understood your (impressive) back-up routine correctly:
1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes to Windows server - daily back-up (Ghost) to ibay, this is a full backup I think yearly or six monthly and then incrementals every day, scheduled for before the sme backup runs. This allows me to rebuild the Windows server & all configuration quickly in the event of a catastrophic failure and/or retrive individual files.
The burnt to USB-drive (SME-backup) is part of the normal daily sme server backup to local USB (2 x 1.5Tb or 2Tb cannot remember exactly which). These drives keep many months or even a year of data on them (using Affa), so I can rebuild the sme server or the Windows server to any date in that period, or retrieve specific files etc as at a certain date. These USB drives are not meant to be long term archive data drives, although they do partially serve that role. They really serve the role of lots of daily backups.
4. Yes
It has all proven useful on occasion, rarely needed, but a real blessing when a problem occurs.
Are those USB-pendrives in No.3? Also what capacity are the USB-drives?
I just have a couple of other drives at present (mini 3" USB's ?), a 500Gb & a 1Tb which I just do an occasional WinRAR manual backup to on the Windows server. It allows me to more easily & quickly retrieve files etc on a Windows workstation when I am at other locations, and provide remote support back to the main office, ie find a file and email it to them sort of thing. It's a bit easier than needing a sme server to connect the backup ext3 USB drives to and "read" the backup data by mounting one of the main USB backup drives.
The mini USB's are holding selective sets of 2 year old data, so are starting to serve the role of long term storage, rather than DVD's, although at present I still use DVD's as well for the absolutely critical accounting data. I just have not let go of my old habits just yet. I went to the shop the other day and they carry very limited supplies now of DVD disks, every one has switched to USB sticks & hard drives etc.
I do not trust USB sticks just yet, had too many failures with them, although I think things are getting better, just buy good quality. No reason not to, I'm just a little stuck in my ways.
Re compression, it will vary with the types of files you store, some may already be in a very compressed format, so little gain on backup.
Incremental daily backups is the way to keep backup data to a minimum, for whatever data set you have to backup regularly. Read the Affa wiki article, there is something there about backup size usage.
I suggest yust get 2 USB disks (the largest size possible eg 2Tb) to do local "almost unattended" backup & swap them off site every so often when you remember. Something is better than nothing, less regularly is better than not at all, sort of thing. You can use the built in backup to workstation, or Affa, depending on how frequently & regularly you swap the disks. Affa is more forgiving.
Look at a remote Affa server later if daily data set size change allows it to be used in a practical sense. You could initially setup the Affa server on site on the LAN and see how it goes and how much data is moved every night etc, and then see if suitable for using remotely across the net.
It (Affa) is fairly easy to set up, just watch carefully the settings in the Affa job config file, so from my point of view there is no reason not to setup your home sme server straight away, and then configure a remote Affa job to backup your office server. You will very quickly see how practical it will be, ie speed & data usage limits etc.
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