Server back up solution advice needed

Abacab · Mar 5, 2011

I am the Sys admin at an All Mac Shop.
Set up as Follows:
Xserve connected to 14TB Promise Vtrak Raid via Fiber, Drives 1 & 2 on Xserve Raided with System, Users,Groups & data on vtrac raid. Drive 3 on Xserve used as a CCC emergency Boot. 24 TB NAS connected via ISCI to which whole system is TIME MACHINED for back up. NOTE: all users are MOBILE ACCOUNTS THAT HAVE SERVER HOME FOLDERS.

There is an identical setup at a colocation to which the data is Rsynced on an hourly basis.

This has worked flawlessly for 3 years but since the last update, something broke in Time machine and backups fail AND APPLE IS NO HELP BECAUSE TIME MACHINE IS NOT AN ENTERPRISE BACKUP SOLUTION.

So does anybody have any suggestions? I've looked at Bru, (Overkill)
and RETROSPECT JUST PLAIN SUCKS!

I also purchased a 16 TB Drobo to test on.

Transporteur · Mar 5, 2011

Is there any specific reason for you to use Time Machine?

Personally, I'd stick with a simple scheduled rsync.

DoFoT9 · Mar 8, 2011

so you want a backup solution for the 14TB server? will this be incremental, or just once every x months - or what?

i too think rsync is always a great idea as it allows things to continually run (the backup would take forever!

).

for a paid solution, i guess CCC or something similar. retrospect does suck

Transporteur · Mar 9, 2011

DoFoT9 said:
so you want a backup solution for the 14TB server? will this be incremental, or just once every x months - or what?

i too think rsync is always a great idea as it allows things to continually run (the backup would take forever! ).

for a paid solution, i guess CCC or something similar. retrospect does suck

rsync backups incrementally as well, so the 14TB won't be an issue.

I wouldn't rely on CCC for an enterprise solution. Although I never had any issue with it, it is too error prone (just look at the bug reports).
rsync is on the market for more than a decade and is widely used in enterprise environments.

Angelo95210 · Mar 9, 2011

I am using Amazon S3 service for backing up our servers. It's cheap and reliable. You can rsync with them or push your files to their servers.

Abacab · Mar 9, 2011

Rsync & CCC

The total amount of data is only about 7 TB. We used Time Machine because if somebody accidentially erased a file it could be retrieved.
I also had the Promise Raid take a dump and we were able to do a complete restore from Time Machine with no issues.
What I have found so far with CCC, it takes some time to move this amount of data , so scheduling is the trick.
Anybpody familiar with Atempo products? They seem good but nobody ever responds from thier website.

DoFoT9 · Mar 9, 2011

Transporteur said:
rsync backups incrementally as well, so the 14TB won't be an issue.

that's true - it does seem to be a very highly recommended industry standard.

I wouldn't rely on CCC for an enterprise solution. Although I never had any issue with it, it is too error prone (just look at the bug reports).
rsync is on the market for more than a decade and is widely used in enterprise environments.

not enterprise no, but i thought it used rsync on the backend? we use it work for computer backups/moves/changes etc, and it runs not TOO bad, never had a problem with it (but it is pretty slow).

belvdr · Mar 9, 2011

The only issue with rsync to a standard filesystem is versioning. Time Machine provides that, so you'd be wise to rsync to a versioned system.

For example, let's say you rsync at 7pm nightly. Someone deletes a file at 5pm, and then your rsync kicks off. At 8am, they realize they need the file restored. Without a versioning system, you're out of luck.

Transporteur · Mar 9, 2011

DoFoT9 said:
not enterprise no, but i thought it used rsync on the backend? we use it work for computer backups/moves/changes etc, and it runs not TOO bad, never had a problem with it (but it is pretty slow).

CCC does indeed use rsync for syncing the selected directories. However, the rsync command has to be fed with the appropriate parameters. I'm not saying that CCC doesn't work (I use if for years now and never had a single problem), there are reports where CCC went wrong, though. For consumers, I highly recommend that application, for enterprise, I'd rather stick to manually kick off an rsync process without a fancy GUI on top of it, as that introduces more error possibilities.

belvdr said:
The only issue with rsync to a standard filesystem is versioning. Time Machine provides that, so you'd be wise to rsync to a versioned system.

For example, let's say you rsync at 7pm nightly. Someone deletes a file at 5pm, and then your rsync kicks off. At 8am, they realize they need the file restored. Without a versioning system, you're out of luck.

That's exactly why I asked for a reason to use TimeMachine. Versioning would in fact be the only thing that comes to my mind with this backup method.

For versioning with rync, you should take a look at rsnapshot.

ArcSissy · Mar 10, 2011

Hello Abacab,

I've been using Archiware's PresStore for some time now.
You might take a look at this application.

In a similar data surrounding, it takes care of daily incremental synthetic backups to several NAS solutions and on a weekly bases it does incremental backups to tapessets. Synchronisation to multiple destinations is supported as well. It might be an overkill for you ... but my experiences are good.

Hope this helps,
ArcSissy

assembled · Mar 11, 2011

ArcSissy said:
Hello Abacab,

I've been using Archiware's PresStore for some time now.

We use Archiware Presstore. We also use rsync with a script to create incrementals, "just like" time machine, but with not quite as pretty an interface

DoFoT9 · Mar 15, 2011

Transporteur said:
CCC does indeed use rsync for syncing the selected directories. However, the rsync command has to be fed with the appropriate parameters. I'm not saying that CCC doesn't work (I use if for years now and never had a single problem), there are reports where CCC went wrong, though. For consumers, I highly recommend that application, for enterprise, I'd rather stick to manually kick off an rsync process without a fancy GUI on top of it, as that introduces more error possibilities.

woops, late reply!

i completely agree with you there - we want to reduce the possibility for errors in the more demanding areas (such as enterprise).

what i do still find is that even in these areas there is still the unpredictability in the applications, which makes it very hard for choosing the "RIGHT software for you" -- it is more what WORKS or you

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