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Need Info on Backup Solutions

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by joe.fusco

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I recently started a new job with a group of dental clinics. The backup policy might as well not exist at the moment.
I need to come up with a new backup solution but I'm not sure which medium to use. All of my searches on media comparrisons yeild results from at least six years ago.
Let me explain my setup. Each clinic has a server and 3-4 workstations. There is only one folder, containing clinical software data, that must be backed up nightly. The clinical software has a backup function built in but we need to decide what medium to use for off-site storage. The folder sizes, at this point, range from 300MB to 750MB with expected growth over time. If we were to take all of the folders from all of the clinics and put them in one place today, the folder would be about 4 gigabytes (Remember, this is only the data that we MUST backup. I anticipate that workstation data may be added later.). With that in mind, I obviously don't need a ginormous capacity system.
I have been looking at tape systems but I'm not very familiar with the different formats and the (dis)advantages of each.
What is going to be the most economical, fastest, and most end-user friendly (i.e. idiot-proof) solution? Should I consider a backup service provider? What should I look for in a backup service provider if I go that way?

26 replies

by choppit

For backups of that size consider CD-RW, DVD-RW or removable hard drives as economical options.

by stress junkie

The sizes of the data sets for each office are perfect for CD-RW and DVD-RW. These media are not subject to being erased by magnetic fields such as CRTs.

You can also use each office as the off site storage for another office. Now all you need is a fireproof box in each office and you are all set. The fireproof box should be lockable. These are not expensive.

by winkyx

Fireproof Box. The best 20 bucks you'll ever spend. Unless you're storing flamable liquids at your location, this is the next best thing to off site storage for disaster recovery and provides some physical security if it's bolted down (no hole drilling through the case please)if you're going to spend $.01 on a backup solution and not include this you're missing the boat. I don't currently have anyone using an ofsite storage provider, but for a hands off solution that would seem to be optimal and perhaps easier to manage. Meeting HIPPA requirements might be easier that way too.

by cactus pete

You might consider looking at using the internet connection for offsite storage WHILE it backs up... Check out service providers like evault.com

by yodatech

Appliance type servers like Nitix? offer an excellent automatic in process backup feature. The Nitix? system offers removable hard drive backup and will require no scheduling. Remember that under HIPPA the medical information must be secured by a defined and auditable procedure.
James Yearnd
yodatech@yahoo.com

by stress junkie

Remember the Bank of America scandal a few months ago when their tapes were lost. If those tapes had been encrypted then the severity of the problem would have been reduced.

Of course now you have to manage passwords for backups. This can be a challenge for long term archives. You need to have a way to be sure that the system administrator shares the backup encryption password with management. Even then if an entire department is laid off at the same time then the long term archives would become useless.

by tonythetiger

are cheap, and have the advantage of not having to crack open any cases to install, but they're bulkier than the other solutions.

by stress junkie

I'm currently testing a Seagate Portable USB hard drive. So far so good. 100 GB capacity for $140 US when I purchased it several months ago, and prices are always dropping.

The portable, external USB hard disks may be rugged enough to do the job. I wouldn't think of using the external disks that are intended to sit on a desk though. That's why I'm trying one that had the word "portable" in its model name. And I chose Seagate because I've used them for years in work and they are very reliable.

by charliespencer

The problem with this approach is it makes it difficult to have more than one day's backup at at time. If the file you need was deleted several days ago, and all you have is a USB drive with last night's backup, you're out of luck. You'd need several external drives so you could rotate them; one for each night of the week and probably another each weekend and month end. The DVD proposal from earlier would be a better approach.

With this being a medical facility, are you legally required to keep data for a set period of time? At the manufacturing company where I work, we are required to keep financial records for seven years. If you are under similar requirements, you are going to want some kind of easily stored and replaced media like CD, DVD, tape, etc.

I don't know how much you want to spend, but I'd look at a DLT or LTO tape solution. DLT drives are available for up to 80Gb; LTOs are available for over 200Gb. But they are going to cost around $1000 and require a SCSI connection. The tapes run around $35 each. This may be more solution than you need.

by tonythetiger

two 400 gig to test (that will cover a month of data) and see if we can replace tape. These particular drives (LACIE, available to 1 TB) are 800 and 400 firewire, as well as usb 1.1 and 2 compatible LACIE. I plan to backup when physically connected to the server via firewire, but that restores can take place from any of 3 offsite locations (the same places we rotate tapes to now, except we won't have to wait or go get the drives when we need to restore something.) hooked to any PC on the network. Naturally we'll have to provide safe and adequate transport, but I think it will work, and a lot easier than waiting or going to get an old set of tapes, exporting the current set, importing the old set, etc.

It should be a lot faster on restores too, given the random access nature of hard drives vs. the serial nature of tape. Backups should be a little faster too (the network becoming the bottleneck to backing up remote servers instead of the tape drive). Currently 300 gig (some local, most remote) is taking about 50 hours. In theory the network can carry it in about 30, but I'd be happy with 40.

If the drives perform as expected, we'll buy 13 more of them (two rotated for incrementals, 12 for fulls, and one spare). 400 gig will hold about 750 gig of "our" data due to compression, so the solution should hold us for awhile.

by stress junkie

Yes the DVD-R or DVD-RW is very affordable. It's also very easy to set up a backup if all of the data can fit on one disk. My only concern is that emerging technologies in this area (Toshiba HD-DVD vs. Sony Blu-Ray) may make any purchase obsolete. But, as one person told me, if you have the technology to do the job then you don't need to purchase the latest thing. So I would say that DVD-R and DVD-RW are good for low cost and long term backups.

I shy away from tape solutions because tape signal degrades over time. I've had long term backups on DLT tape that were four years old and were unreadable. This means that you should retrieve your tape backups about every two or three years and copy them to another tape. This other tape does not have to be new. I don't think that the tape is physically damaged by four years in storage. I think that the magnetic signal self destructs via print through.

I've seen older tapes come from storage where the metal oxide that holds the signal actually did separate from the plastic backing when the tape was rewound. Also tape is very very slow compared to DVD-RW, yet it is very expensive compared to DVD-RW. You can get a nice single layer DVD-RW drive for daily backups and a nice dual layer DVD-R for long term archives for very little money. The lowest price LTO tape drive at CDW is a Certance 100/200 GB drive for $1600. Twenty LTO 100/200 GB tapes cost $1370. You could get a lot of DVD-RW drives and media for that price. I've heard that the cheap DVD-RW media may delaminate over time. I have also heard that the "expensive" DVD-RW disks may last a long time. Mind you the "expensive" DVD-RW media are about $4/disk but they only hold about 4 GB. That's about $1/GB. The LTO tapes were $68 per tape and held 100GB uncompressed. That's about $0.68/GB. That almost 33% less expensive per byte for the tape vs. DVD-RW disks. But you save on the disk drives and the DVD-R and DVD-RW may last longer in long term storage.

This post of mine is losing focus so I'll stop here. In summary, DVD-RW is economical and fast; tape may cause problems for long term backups and it is slow; I'm still looking into all of the factors for using external USB portable hard disks.

[End of transmission] :-)

by stress junkie

The operating systems that I work with, (Windows, Linux, Solaris, and VMS), make data encryption on disk reasonably easy. It can be a struggle to encrypt data on tape though. In this respect encrypting data on DVD-RW would be about as difficult as encrypting data on tape. The easiest approach to handling encryption of data on tape or on DVD is to get a backup software package that does the encryption. However, an external USB connected hard drive can be easily encrypted using tools built into the operating system.

by tonythetiger

We have fireproof safes at each location too. For transport I was thinking blow-molded cases. They make them in nearly any size you want. I paid about $28 for one for my 80 mm binoculars (a little bigger than these hard drives) and you can drop it on the grass from a second story window without hurting the Binoculars, I would expect a reggedized hard drive drives wouldn't be quite so delicate.

by antuck

I would try the DVD-RW double layer. This hold 8GB per disk. It is a newer format for the DVD's. I haven't had the chance to use one yet but it sounds like this maybe an option for you.

I have a customer set up with daily backups to an external hard drive and once a week to DVD. The ext HD they store in a fire proof safe on site and the DVD they take home. I set up icons on the desktop, one for Nero to back up to the DVD and a script file using Robocopy to write to the ext drive. All they have to do is make sure either the ext drive is connected or a DVD disk is in the drive. It is very easy for them to do. Almost idiot proof.

The online solutions are something to look into. There are draw backs as you should perform a back up yourself to some kind of media. I know one customer I talked to was using an online back up and the drive crashed at the back up facility and all data was lost. Lucky for the customer they did not need the data and just started the back ups again, adding to there back ups an ext HD onsite to be on the safe side. But I also know customers that had someone delete a file and it was easily replaced by going to the online back ups and grabbing the file. The company I use has the data encryped as it goes over the internet and sits on the servers HD, so only the customer can read the data. That might help with HIPPA requirments.

by pfreeman

Might want to look at PowerVault 110T LTO-2 Tape Drive. Each tape can hold 200Gb uncompressed and 400Gb compressed...plus the tapes (imation) have a limited lifetime warranty. We use it in conjunction with Backup Exec. using remote storage.

by james schroer

Do not I tell you DO NOT use any form of CDs or DVDs. They have no guaranteed retention. The percentage of good backups is much lower than any tape method. Tape manufactures will stand behind there products but try and get someone to stand behind a CD or DVD is impossible. I really like what one other person said. OnLine backups. I know evault meets and exceads many regulations like HIPPA and SOX. So either use a tape method or online back ups of some sort. And don't store them in a fireproof box in the building. Chances are if the building catches fire you won't be able to enter the building to retieve that box. Keep them off site some where else.

by joe.fusco

I think we're currently using a CD-RW solution but that actually scares the HELL out of me. I have had nothing but BAD luck with CD-RW media. I have transferred data to RW media and not been able to read it 5 minutes later.

Shortly after posting the original message, I checked out the iomega site. Our software mfgr mentions zip and jaz drives in their backup information. I stumbled across their newest product, the REV drive. Anybody have any experience with these?

Thanks,
Joe

by james schroer

I would really shy away from things that are proprietary. What happens if Iomega closes it's doors tomorrow? Where would you find a REV drive then if yours dies? The thing with tape is that most of it's an industry standard of some type. Meaning more that one vendor makes the tapes and drives. DLT is one of the oldest type of media and drives out there today. You can take a brand new drive and still read one of the first dlt tapes out there. That's why they are so expensive. just imagan that 30 years down the line you try and fine a dvd drive that can read a dvd disk from today. Think how fast CDs are fading. These are fade technologies that come and go.

by stress junkie

I believe that I'll be doing business with them. I hate going to Wal-Mart and trying to find something to use as a computer component case among the hardware or school products or office products or, worst of all, the beauty products. Yuck.

:-)

by gjb

Iomega makes the REV drive. 35GB uncompressed, small media about the dimensions of a floppy only thicker. I use it and am very happy with it. I also use a program called syncbackSE (www.syncback.com) With that that tool you will be able to backup or syncronise from off site. The REV will run about $350 and the Syncback go for $20.
Good luck

by john.a

After hassles, and more hassles from tapes, we started backing up to disk. But we still had the daily offsite hassles (taking the HDs off-site). Finally we decided to use a remote online backup service. Costs us $49/month. Way, way cheaper than tape backups, and zero hassle. There are plenty of providers out there to choose from (we use www.trueevaulting.com). We backup 2.2GB of critical data, compressed to 900MB. Been using the service for 4 years now, and still at 900MB, yet have 16 copies. Oh, relaibily? Two problems in 4 years, that turned out to be our Server both times. We do a full hard drive backup monthly to a removable HD. Most online backup providers have free trials.

by tonythetiger

We've been testing USB hard drives as backup devices. So far it looks good. Testing indicates it is about 30% faster during the backup phase and over 200% faster during verify!

That's on standard USB port, backing up across the network via a single 100 mb/s connection. I hope it will be even faster using Firewire 800, and connected to the network via dual 100 mb/s NICs.

by chet

Don?t go with tape backup solution. It is no longer the best solution for backup.
Try online backup service providers. One of them I know is backupnation.com.
I think the best there is in the market right now.
Check it out. www.backupnation.com

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