Networks

backups are a pain in the butt. Always have been and most likely always will be. The more servers you got the worse it gets and no matter what media you use, it costs a freaking fortune and takes a heck of a long time to do.

cant' see much wrong with your plan. Yeah it costs but then backups always cost and the finance suits moan and groan [but then they lose something and we get it back for em they think we're gold].

Disk to disk use SCSI. Do disk to disk at the least amount of network traffic. I would make up a big disk rack that doesn't run anything on the network, stuff it full of SCSI drives, and do the network disk to disk dump at 2am to 5am. Then the tape backup off the disk rack whenever. Maybe get one of those hideously expensive tape changers, hook the bugger up to the disk rack and have someone you particularly dislike sit there and watch it while it dumps to tape.

I'd say the idea is reasonable. I would add a 1GB network card to each server, get a corresponding switch and backup using that backbone. Otherwise, depending on the size of your backup you may run out of time, and considering the extra cost, it won't make that much difference.

The HD you should use depends once more on the amount of data. I'd go for something based on SATA. This is relativley new but promising technology, single HD sizes are usually larger than SCSI (200GB), it is a lot cheaper than SCSI, you can make all types of raid arrays (0, 1, 5, 10), you can add many disks to an array if the controller allows, because of the thin cabling there is much less restriction to airflow, guaranteeing better cooling. I'd use raid 5, this is the easiest to upgrade. Raid 0 doesn't make any sense, you don't need that speed on disks which get their data from a relativly slow network connection. I'd not use the fastest disks (7200rpm should be more than enough), that should get the disks to last longer.

The same goes for the tape drive it depends on the data size and your budget.

Probably Ultrium isn't bad, the tapes aren't that expensive either. Just don't get anything DAT, those tapes don't last long at all.

Disk speed is of minor importance since we are backing up from a 10/100 backbone, however, I'd like to have the extra speed just in case I upgrade to a Megabit backbone. A 5-port Megabit switch can be had for less than $100 nowadays and 2 of my 3 servers already have Megabit NICs in them. I think I'll upgrade the backbone for my servers before I do anything else. As for HD type, I'll go with SATA in 200GB capacity each. RAID5 introduces too much overhead for this application but it IS flexible...hrmm... My only remaining question concerns tape technology. I haven't done that much research into tape technologies. I will start but I'm sure TechRepublic members will surely have some suggestions. Please provide your input regarding tape technologies. I'm looking for something that can store about 50GB native (possibly 150GB compressed).

Also, Ultrium sounds good as the cartridges are reliable and tough.

I've found a very promising disk-to-disk-to-tape product by Certance: CP 3100 Rack (model CP3101R1-160-S)
http://www.certance.com/products/disk-based/cp3100/CP3101R1-160-S

This unit is a 1U device that has a built-in 160GB HD and will emulate a DDS4 or DAT 72 (DDS5?) tape drive. Your tape software will dump its data to this device's HD then the device will dump that data to DDS4 or DAT72 tape. The only problem I see with this is that, even with DAT 72 cartridges, I am only allowed to swap out 1 72GB (compressed) tape per day. I only need to backup about 60GB right now but I'd appreciate a little more head room if I am to invest in a new backup system.

For what its worth, my two cents...

On your tapes I would recommend LTO/SDLT. I've used both and performance is good. Also they provide the space and growth room you indicate toward. I concur, stay away from DAT, it's trash and slooooooowwwwwwww.

As to the rest, RAID 5 over Gigabit. You can use existing cabling at cat5 and still see increases in throughput over shorter distances. RAID 5 is going to give you the easiest maintnenance/update/etc. to data integrity. SATA is new, fast and cheap but being completely biased I would still go SCSI if you can afford it. The pricing today is going to be effected more by vendor and you can leverage that to pricing. A good play on that side is playing the Dell/HP/CDW Delta. Those three are willing to take out all the stops against each other.

Overall, if I read your question correctly you should be able to implement relatively cheaply, especially when you ROI old vs. new. The one thing that you do need to put at the forefront is how valuable is the data. This is always the primary consideration for any backup project and it will give you the best foundation for the decisions involved.

I like your solution but agree with the others on the technology.
I would just as easily use SATA or SCSI. 7200 RPM or 10,000
RPM disk would both be fine. The question of tape space is
tough though. I found this article which is interesting:

http://www.esj.com/news/article.aspx?EditorialsID=784

razz