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In a message dated: 02 May 2002 09:26:56 EDT
"Kenneth E. Lussier" said:
>Hi All,
>
>I am in the market for a tape auto changer because I have to re-vamp my
>companies backup process. I'm having a little trouble deciding on what
>to go wit, though. It will most likely be an HP drive, but I don't know
>what type to get: DDS4 vs DLT. The DDS4 changer can hold 6 tapes, with 1
>drive, and is a *LOT* less expensive. The drawback is that the tapes are
>20/40GB tapes, and I really don't know what our backup needs are going
>to be a year from now. Also, if I use Amanda, I can us the 20GB
>uncompressed (or does Amanda use compression?). Anyway, I was wondering
>what other people were using for backup drives, and looking for any bit
>of advice I can get. I hate backups........
Well, my first piece of advice is:
Check out http://www.backupcentral.com
My second piece of advice is:
Get the O'Reilly book "Backups" by W. Curtis Preston
(King of Enterprise back up and recovery)
As far as what type of drive to get, it completely depends upon your
environment:
- how much are you currently backing up now?
- how much do you expect that to increase in the next 6-12
months?
- what type of backup stategy are you planning on going with?
- what kind of turn-around time do you require for file
restoration?
- how much money do you have to spend?
- what kind of file sharing environment do you have now?
- are you planning on changing it to something which could
figure into how you design your backup strategy?
There is a lot to take into consideration for a backup strategy, and
there is no one right way to do it. A complete understanding of your
data, how your users access/use that data, and the environment it's
stored on currently are essential to designing a backup strategy.
IMO, the 2 most important things about a backup environment are:
- you must be completely comfortable with what you design
- it must be clearly documented, step by step, so someone
else can step in and seamlessly/effortlessly take over
management of the environment in your absence.
My preference has always been to use DLT technology. This is for
several reasons:
- it was always the largest capacity and I always had a
boatload of data to back up.
- for the capacity, it was the fastest media to write to.
- my budget always allowed it.
- it was the first technology I ever used, so I got real
comfortable with it very early on.
None of these reasons is really a viable one to persuade you to go
with DLT. IMO, the media you choose should be dictated by:
- your budget
- the amount of data you have to back up
- the amount of time you have to perform the back ups.
Once you figure out all this stuff, you can then begin designing your
backup strategy, since the strategy is pretty much dictated by:
- the amount of data to be backed up
- the back up time window
- the media technology you've chosen/been forced into :)
Btw, with amanda, there are 2 types of compression available (as with
all backup products): software (gzip) and hardware (on the drive).
IMO, it's best not to use hw compression because the tape written to on
one drive may not be readable on another drive. Absolutely,
positively do not use both hw and sw compression simultaneously,
since you'll actually increase the size of the data written to tape.
With amanda, sw compression is better IMO. The big advantage, which
is really seen with multiple systems being backed up simultaneously
over the net, since you can specify whether the client or the server
performs compression. If your clients are powerful enough machines
and can spare the cycles during the back up window, it makes sense to
have them do the compression, since you can parallelize this task.
Otherwise, you need to let the server do it all which will take a lot
longer.
I hope this helps some.
- --
Seeya,
Paul
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