Michael Conner wrote at about 12:55:58 -0600 on Thursday, March 10, 2011: > Thanks to all who replied. You all basically confirmed my feeling that using > our web server as the backup server was not best practice. I just hoped we > might get by without buying another computer, even though it wouldn't need > to be a very expensive one. The only spare computer we have now is an old XP > box with some type of Celeron processor. Maybe I'll use that to set up a > test system, then get a better one for production.
One doesn't need a very powerful processor unless one is backing up large numbers of machines and huge filesystems. The key limitation is typically network bandwidth first, disk I/O speed second, RAM third, and CPU only 4th. In fact CPU is really only used for compression/decompression (and ssh encryption/decryption if using rsync). Even a celeron CPU should be faster than you network bandwidth or disk I/O unless again you have things like a high-end SAN and RAID system and multiple gigE connections. On the other extreme, I have successfully tested running BackupPC to backup up my home office server and about half dozen pc's using a SOHO NAS with 64 MB RAM and an 800MHz Arm CPU. I also all of the time run a second instance of BackupPC on a plugcomputer with a 1.2GHz Arm CPU, 512MB DRAM and an external USB hard drive -- that works quite well for me even. Of course, at certain scales you need more, but you may be surprised to find that a celeron box with a RAID1 pair of drives may be good enough for you seemingly small installation. > > One additional question: are there any advantages to any particular flavor > of Linux for BPC? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Colocation vs. Managed Hosting A question and answer guide to determining the best fit for your organization - today and in the future. http://p.sf.net/sfu/internap-sfd2d _______________________________________________ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki: http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
