TapeBackup Advice (and HD array device)..
- From: "markm75" <markm75c@xxxxxxx>
- Date: 12 Jan 2007 06:53:33 -0800
I've had this topic scattered amongst other questions.. so I put it all
together in one location now.. seeking a last round of advice now that
I've come up with the plan:
I've researched this pretty thoroughly to this point, unless there are
other alternatives..
Our budget was to keep things at 10K or less..
So I came up with the idea to build (homemade) a 2003 server, rack
mount, with a Pentium D, 512MB ram, SATAII PCI-E raid controller and 5
drives in raid5 for a total of 2 TB (the rack mount server has 8
removable bays). Yes I know the PentiumD isnt as good as say a
DualCore2 or better yet an Irwindale Xeon (which most true SANs seem to
have), but to keep the budget low this was my solution.. I would think
that even with these specs, this "backup server" array would be
powerful enough to handle running symantec backup exec and copying data
from 4 servers to this one's backup array? The price on this whole
server is $2600 or so.. not bad considering most SANs start around $5k
and goto an average of $12k?
Connected to this server would be an U320 SCSI Tape Backup Library
Loader...
Here are the choices I came up with.. I'm torn between LTO3 and
DLT-S4.. LTO3 is 400/800, while DLT-S4 is 800/1600. the LTO3 runs at
about 80 mB/s while the S4 is 60 mB/s. There will be an LTO4 in about
6 months, handling 800/1600 and 120 mB/s.. as well as an S5 in 16
months that will do 1600/3200 or so at 120 mB/s or more...
We currently have about 745GB of data for a full backup with all 4
servers combined.. by end of the month doing incrementals this hits 1.1
TB.. My goal was to make this backup solution last at least 3 years..
so the 2TB backup array should do the trick and can be expanded..
Here are the tape library options and the pros/cons (all of these
devices will auto goto the next tape as one runs out and will allow for
say selecting tapes 1,4 on day1, tape 2,5 day2 etc; they are also 1
drive solutions, with no real benefit if you had 2 drives except if
restoring at the same time):
1. Superload3 Dlt-s4 $4700 street
http://www.amatteroffax.com/item.asp?INVID=1318407&SRC=froogle&CKP=ADUHCTGM%5ED%40PAYPA
8 slot library, rackmount, U320; This unit, according to what I've
heard, can be upgraded to newer drive technology, however its not easy,
you have to ship it back to Quantum and they do the swap (say when the
S5 comes out). It is 6.4TB/12.8TB capacity; Tapes avg $82.
2. ExeByte Magnum224 LTO3 $4199 street,
http://www.unistorage.com/unistorage/index.cfm?fuseaction=shop.dspSpecs&part=1669988
(CDW has it for $5100 shipped with a free 12 magazine cart. and 5
free tapes); This unit is 4.8TB/9.6TB, can go from a 1x12 to a 2x24
drive unit. Tapes are an avg of $52. Can simply swap out the drive
for a better drive as they come along.
So my delemma is whether to go with the LTO3 library, which is more
easily expanded /upgraded to LTO4.. or go with the DLT unit, which will
require less tapes essentially, but could be upgraded if really
desired.
I'm thinking we'd need about 2 tapes for the DLT and 3 tapes for the
LTO, times about 3 to have a rotating weekly offsite set plus a
quarterly (x4).. so either figured times 6 is the number of tapes
needed initially and as data grows so does the # of tapes, esp with
LTO3. (12 tapes DLT, 18 tapes LTO3). Also.. the backup of 288GB to an
existing HD on the same machine took 4 hours and the backup of about
406GB across a gigabit connection to a SATAII drive took about 9
hours.. this would imply that the tape or the HD array would require
around 18 hours for the full 745GB backup! I am hoping there is some
way to speed this along or break up the backups over 2 days perhaps?
Does this sound like a typical time for this amount of data (at around
60 MB/s, gigabit or SATAII direct)?
Another issue is the backup software.. Is Backup Exec the best
solution.. does it really require 4 Cals.. one for each server (or a
cal for every SQL box and one for every exchange)? I'm assuming I'll
be backing up data via network mappings on the backup server.. so I'm
not sure why we'd need a cal for these servers, since the backup wont
run on them directly.. or does an agent have to go on each server to
allow open files to be copied?
I'm also not sure if I should do two seperate backups, one to the HD
array server and one to the tape (from the 4 servers) or if I should
just backup the HD array to tape.. so a backup inside a backup (slower
to restore though). I think most are doing the backup array to tape,
not two seperate?
Anyone have any comments on these units or a better library/HD array
option and the best backup software.. Combined these units total around
$7500..
.
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