Backup Solution for 1TB of Data

Well I am assuming with that much data on the line they already have a RAID 5 solution in place. So this backup solution would be a catastrophic failure kind of backup right? In which case the desire to keep it offsite.

How about setting up another RAID 5 box offsite and synchronizing the two boxes? Our office is a branch office with its own server running Windows Server 2k3 and it synchronizes all changes to our main office, so if the office ever burns down they have a copy of our data. I'll check what they use to synchronize data, but I am sure there is a way to do it even if you had something as simple as an Infrant ReadyNAS box running offsite. And of course I guess it depends how much churn they have, or new data or changed data they are producing. We never have more than 100MB really so its trivial to transfer the new data. But if we are talking gigs and gigs it may not be feasible.

If the guy wants to take something home every night get him an external 1 TB Lacie Drive. That's pretty much the only thing thats going to provide portability with that kind of storage.

 

Have you looked at the Xserve RAID?

Sean

 

YIKES!!!! Thats got to be an administrative nightmare and is just asking for trouble.

Get them that Xserve already and if they are dealing with a lot of data install a gigabit switch and gigabit NICs if they don't already have them.

If you got the Lacie 1 TB external drive you would only need that one for a full backup from the Xserve assuming RAID 5 w/ 500GB drives.

Also if you need something now as opposed to waiting until October, you could get the Mac Pro. It is basically a server anyway and might be a lot more suited to their needs as I doubt they have a rack for the Xserve. In addition it has 4 drive bays instead of 3 and you can configure it with OS X server. The only potential drawback would be if you wanted to go with SCSI on the Xserve, which would probably be overkill and a lot more expensive. Also I don't see anything about a SATA RAID controller for the Xserve, but the Mac Pro does RAID in software. And at $400 a pop don't get the 500GB drives from apple, for that much money you could get 750GB drives.

 

I think disk is your best option. Tapes are fine, but you would want to get a library, which increases costs.

Look at the infrant readynas NV, or X6. Holds up to 4 HD, and you can do x-raid, which is their LVM Raid5. (allows you to start with say a 500GB single drive, and then add an additional 500GB for mirroring, and then another 500GB for a Raid5 (1TB total), and then another 500GB if you need more space). You could also use the 750GB as well, but there is a 2TB limit right now due to the 2.4 kernel they are using. You can configure different shares, and have user quotas if you want.

I have the X6 in my basement with 2 400GB drives, and it works great.

Kimo

 

Archiving past jobs to DVD isn't a quality method either if it is dye based, I could see DVD-RAM -- but it is slow and hasn't kept up, even though it is an archive quality medium.

Just make sure they are recording to an alloy-based DVD medium instead of a cheap dye-based one.

Edit: or has the quality changed on the degradation of alloy vs. dye these days. (haven't kept up).