I am in the process of setting up a replacement backup server and have a couple of question I would like to query the amanda community on.
Our current backup server is a Dual PII 450 with 256 Mb RAM running Linux (2.2). The backup device is a single Sony AIT-1 (SDX-300). The network connection consists of 4 100TX ethernet interfaces "bonded" (Cisco EtherChannel) into a single logical interface and plugged into our switch. The holding space consists of two 24Gb and one 7Gb partion. Oh and of course it is running Amanda 2.4.2p2. My replacement machine will be a dual 1.26Ghz PIII with 1Gb RAM running Linux (2.4). The backup devices will be the SDX-300 from the above machine and 3 additional SDX-400 tape drives. Unfortunately I will only be able to use two interfaces in this machine. The holding space will consist of 2 36Gb and 1 75Gb partitions. And again I will be using Amanda 2.4.2p2. The client machines consist of approximately 90 machines with a disk usage of about 500Gb. Ok now to the questions ... 1) Does anyone have any experience comparing the performance of FreeBSD vs. Linux as an Amanda backup server? If so which did you choose? 2) I would like to utilize my 4 tape drives in the best possible way. I would prefer to use the tape drives in parallel. Are any of you doing this (via spliting the configuration into multiple configurations, etc) and what have your experiences been? Would I be better off using the 4 tape drives in series with a single configuration? Should I keep both backup servers and run two tape drives in each? 3) Will Amanda v 2.5 use tape drives in parallel? 4) If you were in my shoes how would you set up the above system? Thanks in advance for any suggestions you provide. - Mike Hogsett
