Re: NAS or USB Backup?

ShadowProtect can be configured to send an e-mail as soon as the job
completes or fails. For success, it tells start and end time, source and
destination. For failure, it sends the log. It won't do tape - it only
backs up to a drive, but it can use any drive you can map from the server.
I just have an Outlook rule that moves the success messages to their own
folder, and I just tested the failure message by accidentally letting a
drive fill up.

At first glance, you might think SP is a little pricey. However, in
addition to the awesome job it does with backup, it also has hardware
independent restore. That means that it'll restore to just about any
hardware, even virtual, with the built-in drivers. If it doesn't have the
drivers for your hardware, you can add them during the restore. I've never
had to do a bare metal restore to different hardware, but I've seen it
demonstrated and it's really awesome (not to mention simple). I have tested
bare metal restore to the same hardware, and that worked flawlessly,
including restore of SQL databases that were backed up on line, and came
right back up after the restore as if nothing had happened.

If you're considering SP, please consider downloading the trial from their
web site. It's full-featured for I think 30 days, and it'll uninstall
cleanly in the unlikely event you decide against it. There's an
SBS-specific version with attractive pricing. On SBS, you need to enable
the Exchange VSS writer if you switch away from the built-in backup -
there's a KB for that. Post back if you can't find it.


"Dave W" <mtdave@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4e1f5c87-4f4c-45a0-94cf-f34e27cd1561@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Dec 4, 3:17 am, "Brian Cryer" <bri...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
"Dave W" <mtd...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:ae27b3e6-34de-4b1a-9f8b-8fe13f5c0c35@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<snip>

OK, so in theory, a USB 2.0 drive at 480Mbps will run slower than a
gigabit connection runing at 1000Mbps assuming the NIC and the drive
is the same right?

USB typically run slower than this, but the point is that its the drive
(single, mirrored, raided - whatever the configuration) that is the
bottleneck not the interface (USB or network).

Right now, we are backing up 175GB of data (full backup) to a gigabit
connected Western Digital hard drive -- and it takes 18+ hours. Does
this seem reasonable?

Ouch, yes and no.

In a non-SBS environment I backup about 400GB of data each night to a
single
external usb disk. This disk holds the backups from three different
servers.
Unfortunatly I've no idea how long it takes, but one server (the main
office
server) backs up about 340GB of data, the backup kicks of at 1pm and is
always finished before I come into the office at 9am.

The difference in timings is probably due to "how" I do the backup. The
server has three drives:
C: 41GB used
E: 67GB used
F: 236GB used
I use ntbackup to backup the C drive. That plus a script to backup the
sql-server databases (also on C: - I know they shouldn't be but ...)
probably takes the bulk of the time. The backup of the E: and F: drives
is
very quick. The reason is that I don't use ntbackup for those but a
straight
file copy. Actually its not a straight copy, we use an in-house file-copy
utility similar to xcopy but which also removes files that no longer
exist.
The net effect is that the very first time a backup is run it does take
an
age but each time the backup is run to overwrite an older-backup it only
needs to copy those files which are new or which have changed (most files
thus don't need copying). The end result is that it is very fast and I
end
up with a complete image of the drives plus an nt backup of the system
disk.

I don't have figures to hand, but for an SBS setup I use the same
approach
and backing up about 100GB of data (ish) comfortably finishes over night.

So perhaps consider how you do your backup. For example would
differential
backups help?
--
Brian Cryerwww.cryer.co.uk/brian

Yeah, I've thought about going with the differential but I REALLY like
the reports I get from the SBS backup utility. However, those reports
are a day behind but I still get an immediate warning email if it
fails.

Does anyone know if ShadowProtect sends an email upon completion?

We use Backup Exec 11d to a 400/800 internal tape drive and it
finishes within a reasonable time frame. The NAS drive is just a
secondary backup that makes it easier in case the whole server goes
down. Being able to restore quickbooks from it is a nice layer of
flexibility.

I appreciate the thoughts around this.



.

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