Large Volume Backup Solution?

Hello,
I'm investigating some solutions to backing up a large and extensive digital film library. We are a online movie distributor and looking to build a backup solution to our library.
We are currently at 7TB of space.
Files formats include: MOV, MP4, M4V, JPG, PDF, PSD, PNG
We expect to be using 12TB of space by the end of the year.
We expenct to be filling 1-2TB of space every month in 2013.
If we set up a FTP/SMB NAS at an external site, is any recommended Apple software that can manage a scheduled back up of the above?
Do you have any recommendations on a expandable NAS?
If not, any cheap cloud storage solutions that can manage dozens of TB of storage in a year?
Thank you.

The amount of data you are talking about will be difficult to manage remotely.
I did a Bad Blocks scan recently on a FireWire-attached 3TB backup drive, and it took over 12 hours just to read every block.
My recommendation for remote backup of that scale of data is to do the backup locally, then put the drives (or the entire NAS unit) in your car and take it off site.

Similar Messages

2x 10.5.2 xServe + raid backup solutions - Suggestions please!

Hello,
I'll give a brief overview of what I'm rolling out. *Limited budget* So keep that in mind
Basically I'm just looking for suggestions on backup solutions for this particular setup. I have been hearing mixed reviews of most backup solutions under 10.5.x... (In 10.4.x server I was relatively confident with Retrospect and had performed restores before).
--2 xServes, One web server, one for local services like mail, OD, AFP, Cal, etc. each has 2x 80gb drive (boot volume + mirror). Advanced server config.
--1x raid configured as raid6 with 4TB useable after formatting and parity. Data (user directory, mail store, calendar, web sites and database, etc) will be on the raid volumes, the 80 gb drives in xserves are only for OS and log files.
--All clients are using MacBook Pro's and most users have minimal data. Most data will be mail and quicktime videos (compressed for web, originals on mini dv tapes).
--MacBook Pro's already live, current server is SBS 2003 and it handles backups via Retrospect.
--Backups will have to be D2D, tape is not an option in this case. This means two external drives for backup (one on site and one off site, cycle on friday). Probably 2TB FW800 for each drive as entire raid isn't being backed up, some of it is scratch storage so 2 TB is plenty for now).
Naturally I want to use time machine but I am hearing of horror stories using time machine to backup advanced server in 10.5. Also seeing issues with cyrus (mail) and time machine (I will be running mail services). In addition, I don't think I could do any sort of cycle with the two external drives using time machine? The lack of configurability in time machine worries me. And finally, I don't know how time machine does with active database' (Ie: sql database for web server, I just don't know if time machine will cause problems when trying to back live database up). If someone has experience with time machine in a similar setup I'd love to hear your thoughts / suggestions.
Alternatively there is retrospect. We already own a license and I am familiar with administering it on 10.4.x. How reliable is it for backing up 10.5.2 clients and 10.5.2 server? Including active databses (Again the web server sql databases, etc? Kind of a pain restoring anything from retrospect (Especially entire server if / when it has to be done) but it was tried and true for me in 10.4.x server installations.
These MacBook pro's will also likely become mobile homes once all is said and done (But currently are not as the xServes are not installed yet). Time machine + mobile home directory seems like a lot of data being backed up that is probably redundant?
To top it all off, until new office is ready (All gigabit when that happens in ~1 year) network is as follows:
Servers have 100 mbit full duplex connection
Clients have 10mbit half duplex (This is where time machine really frightens me with hourly client backup).
Considering above, I can either:
A: Run proactive backup script from retrospect for all clients and then nightly backup for select raid volume contents + server boot volumes.
B: Not backup clients directly via retrospect and only backup contents of the raid volume (Which is where the mobile homes will be stored). Mobile home sync would be set to occur on login / logout only (Considering 10mbit client connections, I don't want active or user initiated sync heh).
Thoughts / suggestions? Thanks in advance, any suggestions are much appreciated. Hardware is set in stone but backup solution is not so most aspects of backup solution can be changed =)

First of all, thanks for your reply!
Well I should clarify in that I wasn't going to operate "network" homes and that they were just going to be the mobile homes with sync only occurring at login / logout. Even then, I think I'd run in to issues with the 10base-T for the client systems. The servers are on 100base-T full duplex. Currently All of the Windows systems do the same and logging in / out isn't too terrible but I couldn't imagine actually running the home directories off the server on 10base-T.
Do you still think mobile homes would be too much with just the login / logout sync? If so, I'll simply avoid this option until we get our new building and gigabit networking all around in the next year.
You're correct in that all clients will be running 10.5.2.
If I am not running mobile homes, I suppose the easiest way then is to in fact backup clients via time machine to the raid volume and then backup the entire raid volume (Hence all of our sites, compressed video files and databases to a large external drive (Maybe I'll get a couple 3 or 4 TB raid drives instead... lol). Naturaly I'd select the scratch disk directories and tell time machine to ignore them. Only issue there being that I may run in to space concerns like you say. If it becomes a huge problem and apple still hasn't made TM more configurable by then, I could use the time machine editor app or modify the intervals myself. I'd rather not and will only do this if it becomes an issue
From what I can gather, time machine is not making complete duplicates of an active database (MS Entourage in this case) and is only backing up the changes. I was worried about how it handled this and whether it would detect a change and just backup the entire database again (Which would be a nightmare if it did this for our web directories as they have active databases running).
Do you know of time machine will wreak havoc with active databases (Like the ones our websites use, a couple small sql databases and one larger one).
I think time machine would work well with the method you suggested. So I can just set it to backup all clients to the raid volume and then setup time machine to backup the raid volume to the external disk? For my off site... I suppose I could just bring in the second identical external drive every Friday and copy the time machine backup database from the on site backup drive on to it and then get it out of there each evening.
As for backing up the servers themselves, they will not be storing much of anything and most everything will be pointed to the raid volume (Hence the 80GB drives). Because of this, the data on the servers themselves will not change THAT much compared to the raid volume which will change drastically every day so full backups of the servers is fine. Perhaps just setting psyncX (assuming it works in 10.5) to backup the 80GB boot volume for each server would be best? I could just set psyncX to backup each server boot volume to the same external drive the raid volume is backing up to and then each friday just copy the data from the on site drive to the external, killing two birds with one stone. (Tape would make this all easier but it isn't gonna happen in this case sigh).
I worry about the cyrus / mail issues I'm reading about on servers running time machine though.

Mac OS X Server Backup solutions?

Hi all, I have built up my network with 3 Leopard servers running on Mac Pro's and 8 mac clients (one mobile)
Between all of them there is about 12TB's of storage space (about 2TB being used at present)
it really is time to now invest in a complete backup solution and we won't a format that can be taken offsite (Tape sounds the best)
I really have hardly any experience in this area and need to get some advice.
I have an ATTO Ultra320 card in one of the Mac Pro's so need to figure out which tape drive (or drives) which software and the best way to implement it.
All the clients are on OD so not overly bothered about backing them up, just the 3 main servers really.
Any help would be really appreciated, thanks.

Here's some grist for the thought mill...
The use of "Removable" here likely (probably?) means "remote", which itself (and depending on the bandwidth of the network connection or access to couriers or such) may or may not actually be a removable disk or removable tape storage, or disk or tape libraries.
What's the volume of the actual data? What's the rate of change of the data? There are two parts to the calculation for the creation and operation of the archive, the initial archive and the occasional (weekly, monthly, before an upgrade) full archive, and then the incremental (hourly, daily, weekly) archives. This assumes the usual two-level archive processing; an occasional full and a more frequent incremental.
You need to figure out how big these activities are, and what your backup window is. These details then drive the available hardware and media options and then the device selection.
Then determine (or guesstimate) the growth rate of the data. That tells you what your approach can support now, and how quickly your backup window (if you have one) might be closing. And (if you're using smaller media) when you might need to go to a larger-capacity media or to multi-volume archives. Right now, you can probably get most everything onto a 1 TB or 1.5 TB spindle, for instance.
You'll also need to sort out the local and continuously-active processing activities, and how to get copies of those. The sqldump tool, for instance, can be the path to get a recoverable installation. And that processing tends to be part of getting a recoverable archive.
There are cloud services around for storage and (if your change rate is less than the bandwidth "slop" available within your current network pipe) to a remote site that you manage or contract with; to a storage site or to warm site you work with, or out to an Amazon S3 or other competing storage pool. (There are various options for archiving out into Amazon S3, for instance. And Time Capsule and Time Machine is seriously slick.)
Never assume that RAID is an archival strategy. It's not. RAID is useless against application corruptions, blown software upgrades, user errors, client and server and storage theft, and malicious-user activities. Nor against roof-mounted heat exchanger system that sprout leaks that then pour red-colored coolant into the server racks. RAID protects against disk spindle failures and (for some specific configurations) against certain other "upstream" storage controller failures.
When you get all done, make sure you can recover and restart using your archives. Periodically test the recoverability of the archives.

I want a better backup solution.

My current network consists of a 1Tb Time Capsule backing up a 500Gb HDD in an iMac and a 500Gb HDD backing up a MacBook Pro via the wireless network.
I have a 3Tb HDD attached externally to the iMac that I use for large file storage and remote access with my MacBook Pro. It's been a few years since I made the purchase and began using the drive in this way, and I feel like it's time to prepare for the failure of the drive. I've been present for many drive failures of friends and family. I don't take risks of losing my data.
I was curious of the backup solutions you all must have, drive brands that you trust (I'm a WD fan), and if you use RAID 1 or RAID 1 Mirroring.
Thank you.

I use a number of Lacie D2 Quadra drives + OWC Mercury Elite enclosures with WD Caviar Black SATA drives. They have been 100% reliable for many years. (I formerly used Seagate Barracuda drives, but gradually migrated to the Caviar Blacks). In practice, I have 3x backups on separate drives. The drives are only connected during backup operation, otherwise they are disconnected from my Macs, each other and power. I keep one set offsite.
For my more frequent, interim backups, I also use a Lacie D2 Network2 online in my network; I back up email & documents more frequently than other files since they change daily. I use a combination of manual copies via the Finder and automated backups via CarbonCopyCloner depending on what I want to backup at any particular time. I do not use Time Machine or a Time Capsule.
RAID is interesting and useful, but it is not backup. Mirroring only protects you against a single hard drive failure in the Mirror set itself. It does not protect you from software, user or system errors, which are much more frequent than hard drive failures. And in the event the RAID Mirror enclosure itself fails, both drives are likely to be unusable.

Backup solutions for Solaris 10 systems

I am trying to put together a backup solution for a number of SunFire V240 systems running Solaris 10. We do run our backups using NetWorker, along with a couple of high powered back up systems. But this solution I am trying to create is something that can be performed by our first responders, our help desk folks. The systems in question are already in production but we do have days where we can bring them down for maintenance or whatever we need to do. Therefore, I can implement this new solution during the day(s) of maintenance time.
I was looking at using Solaris Volume Manager and its metadata configurations. But I am unsure how to start with files sytems already created. I want to be able to have a backup of the boot disk in the event that the hard drive in which it resides goes down. I want our help desk folks be able to immediately bring the system right back up with little down time during the evening to late hours.
I guess what I am looking for are exact steps to help configure this backup solution with Solaris Volume Manager for our production systems. Can anyone help?

Hey there,
Have a look at this excellent guide. I think that you may find what you need here. If not drop an email back. To begin with you need an extra disk(s) since you will mirror your data. This is sort of a pre-requisite.
Good luck,
Pierre
http://www.adminschoice.com/docs/solstice_disksuite.htm

Retrive SQL from Webi report and process it for large volume of data

We have a Scenario where, we need to extract large volumes of data into flat files and distribute them from u2018Teradatau2019 warehouse which we usually call them as u2018Extractsu2019. But the requirement is such that, Business users wants to build their own u2018Adhoc Extractsu2019. The only way, I thought, to achieve this, is Build a universe, create the query, save the report and do not run it. Then write a RAS SDK to retrieve the SQL code from the reports and save into .txt file and process it directly in Teradata?
Is there any predefined Solution available with SAP BO or any other tool for this kind of Scenarios?

Hi Shawn,
Do we have some VB macro to retrieve Sql queries of data providers of all the WebI reports in CMS.
Any information or even direction where I can get information will be helpful.
Thanks in advance.
Ashesh

Rsync or other backup solution- single source multiple target?

Seems from http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions … ly-774225/ that I can't do what I want, but I thought I'd ask as well.
My laptop hard disc is going to be backed up to two external hard discs (regular script). What I do right now is run two separate rsync commands, but of course this means that the data (all 300+ GB of it, currently) needs to be read twice. Seems it'd be much more efficient if the data were read once and then written to both external hard discs.
It doesn't seem from the above link and other google resources that this is possible. Can anyone suggest an alternative short of scripting a file-by-file cache?
Last edited by ngoonee (2013-10-31 01:33:22)

cfr wrote:
Doesn't this partially undermine the point of doing two backups? I realise one is off site and that they are on separate devices which rules out some sources of corruption/loss but if you run the backup as you wish and something bad happens to the source during the backup, you are likely to end up with three corrupted copies rather than only two.
I don't manage to do this as I only have one complete backup but I thought that best practice involved not touching one backup while the other backup was being created (or restored or...). That way, you always have one "known good" backup whatever happens.
EDIT: not "whatever happens" but "whichever of any of a larger number of possible catastrophes occurs". Obviously, the third copy could be on a device that dies or explodes or gets drowned by a peeved goldfish at just that moment when mice eat your source during a backup, thus corrupting your other two copies. But you can only plan so far...
This isn't my complete backup solution. I have two hard discs in one location (what I'm asking about here) and another one at a different location. The reason I have two is simply because I have a spare which doesn't have any other use, and it may as well be put to use in this way.
Besides, if something happens to the source, using --backup-dir means I'll still have the last known good copy anyway (not taking into account the backup which is at the different location.

Can't highlight and delete or move large volumes of emails. Have to hold command to select multiple and click on each one ?

I love being able to mass delete, mark as read or move emails but with Mountain Lion I now have to select each email individually and cannot just hold mouse and roll up and select in large volumes. I can select more than one only if holding down command and clicking on each email. Is there a way around this? What has changed?
This is terrible and completely time consuming to delete emails.

Found solution. Must double click first and then scroll!

Backup Solutions for our iMac

We just narrowly escaped losing our hard drive due to maxing it out - 319GB or 320 used. The reason? I procrastinated creating a backup solution. Now we need to move forward and am looking for suggestions as to the best route. As background, our system currently consists of:
(1) Macbook Air (2012)
(1) iMac (mid 2007, Intel)
(1) 2wiregateway wireless router (AT&T Broadband)
Online back-up via Backblaze (am considering switching to Crashplan or Carbonite)
We need a solution that will provide:
automatic wireless back-ups of both machines though I could hardwire our desktop if need be - TC?
external disk storage for our media (e.g., photos, music and video files) - WD, SG, IOM linked to TC, needs to be backed up using TM
media server - access from Macbook Air, iPad (future), iPhone (future), any wireless device playing iTunes; e.g., Denon receiver (future need)
I purchased and tried to set-up a Seagate GoFlex Home option but the wireless set-up via the 2wire has been difficult and I've had no luck with linking it as a drive for Time Machine. I plan to return based on feedback (regarding my set-up options). Like everyone, we want to 'future proof', however, we're NOT large media purchasers so excessive storage is not an issue - mostly photo files. We're mainly focused on ease, durability and costs.
This is what i was thinking:
automatic wireless back-ups of both machines - Time Machine/Time Capsule ($300+)
external disk storage for our media - external harddrive (WD, SG, IOM) connected via Ethernet to TC or as it's a store server, hardwire this one (firewire) to the desktop. This too will need to be backed up using Time Machine ($150+)
media server - ? Again, secondary future need
Thoughts?

Thanks for all of the feedback. I've sat down and drawn out an updated solution (see below). I think this will meet all of our needs but would love all and any feedback including on my drive selections/options. Our modified 'need' list.
external disk storage for our media (e.g., photos, music and video files) [External Hard Drive FW800 connection]
automatic wireless data back-ups of both machines [Time Capsule]
bootable local back-up of both machines [External Hard Drive with Super Duper linked to Time Capsule]
media server - access from Macbook Air, iPad (future), iPhone (future) [iCloud]
network printer connection [Time Capsule]
off-site data back-ups of both machines [Back Blaze/Carbonite]
Does this make sense? Overkill? Thoughts regarding Iomega drives?

Loading large volumes of arbitrary binary data to a clip

It is easy to download external data in XML format to a movie
clip. However, what I need is to load really large volumes of
readonly binary data. In my case, textual representation is not an
option. Is it possible to download an arbitrary array of bytes into
memory then seek this array to read individual bytes?
I don't think that ActionsScript arrays like this one
var data:Array = [1,2,3,...];
could be solution fro my problem either. The reason is that
virtual machine associates so much extra information with every
array member.
The only solution I came so far is to pack binary data as
strings,
var data:String = "\u0000\u1234\uabcd";
two byte per character. There should not be any storage
overhead, and seeking for an individual data member is trivial.
But I doubt is there any better solution?

For as2 I don't believe there's any other option other than
to load it in as an encoded string and then decode it internally.
So if you have \u0000 as in the above example you will find it
doesn't work.
var data:String = "\u0000\u1234\uabcd";
trace(data.length) //traces 0 (zero) because the first
character is a string terminator
I think you need an encoding method like base64 in the source
string and an equivalent decoder class for decoding to binary
inside flash. I'm not expert on this stuff... others may know more
or it could be a starting point for your research.
In the past I've used the meychi.com classes for this type of
thing. Couldn't see them online now... but there's something else
here that may be useful:
http://www.svendens.be/blog/archives/8
With as3 - as I understand it - there's no problem because
you can load binary data.

Definitive Storage and Backup solution

Hello, I'm looking for a definitive Storage and Backup solution.
So far I've been looking on to Drobo 5D or N, LaCie 5big Thunderbolt™ 2, or LaCie 2big Thunderbolt™ 2.
Networking would be a plus but not a must. I'm open for other suggestions and also wonder if these systems can be considered backup since they are ready for single or double disks failures.
Thanks.

Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection
Avoid Lacie, they contain Seagate drives inside. Bad idea.
huge storage, low cost, high quality, very small and portable.
BEST FOR THE COST, Toshiba "tiny giant" 15mm thick 2TB drive (have several of them, lots of storage in tiny package)    $100
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Connect-Portable-HDTC720XK3C1/dp/B00CGUMS48     /ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1390020791&sr=8-3&keywords=toshiba+2tb
best options for the price, and high quality HD:
Quality 1TB drives are $50 per TB on 3.5" or $65 per TB on 2.5"
Perfect 1TB for $68
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-Hard-Drive/dp/B005J7YA3W/ref=sr_1_ 1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379452568&sr=8-1&keywords=1tb+toshiba
Nice 500gig for $50. ultraslim perfect for use with a notebook
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B009F1CXI2/ref=s     r_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1377642728&sr=1-1&keywords=toshiba+slim+500gb
*This one is the BEST portable external HD available that money can buy:
HGST Touro Mobile 1TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive $88
http://www.amazon.com/HGST-Mobile-Portable-External-0S03559/dp/B009GE6JI8/ref=sr     _1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383238934&sr=8-1&keywords=HGST+Touro+Mobile+Pro+1TB+USB+3.0+7 2 00+RPM
Most storage experts agree on the Hitachi 2.5"
Hitachi is the winner in hard drive reliability survey:
Hitachi manufacturers the safest and most reliable hard drives, according to the Storelab study. Of the hundreds of Hitachi hard drives received, not a single one had failed due to manufacturing or design errors. Adding the highest average lifespans and the best relationship between failures and market share, Hitachi can be regarded as the winner.
Data Storage Platforms; their Drawbacks & Advantages
#1. Time Machine / Time Capsule
Drawbacks:
1. Time Machine is not bootable, if your internal drive fails, you cannot access files or boot from TM directly from the dead computer.
OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks include OS X Recovery. This feature includes all of the tools you need to reinstall OS X, repair your disk, and even restore from a Time Machine
"you can't boot directly from your Time Machine backups"
2. Time machine is controlled by complex software, and while you can delve into the TM backup database for specific file(s) extraction, this is not ideal or desirable.
3. Time machine can and does have the potential for many error codes in which data corruption can occur and your important backup files may not be saved correctly, at all, or even damaged. This extra link of failure in placing software between your data and its recovery is a point of risk and failure. A HD clone is not subject to these errors.
4. Time machine mirrors your internal HD, in which cases of data corruption, this corruption can immediately spread to the backup as the two are linked. TM is perpetually connected (or often) to your computer, and corruption spread to corruption, without isolation, which TM lacks (usually), migrating errors or corruption is either automatic or extremely easy to unwittingly do.
5. Time Machine does not keep endless copies of changed or deleted data, and you are often not notified when it deletes them; likewise you may accidently delete files off your computer and this accident is mirrored on TM.
6. Restoring from TM is quite time intensive.
7. TM is a backup and not a data archive, and therefore by definition a low-level security of vital/important data.
8. TM working premise is a “black box” backup of OS, APPS, settings, and vital data that nearly 100% of users never verify until an emergency hits or their computers internal SSD or HD that is corrupt or dead and this is an extremely bad working premise on vital data.
9. Given that data created and stored is growing exponentially, the fact that TM operates as a “store-it-all” backup nexus makes TM inherently incapable to easily backup massive amounts of data, nor is doing so a good idea.
10. TM working premise is a backup of a users system and active working data, and NOT massive amounts of static data, yet most users never take this into consideration, making TM a high-risk locus of data “bloat”.
11. In the case of Time Capsule, wifi data storage is a less than ideal premise given possible wireless data corruption.
12. TM like all HD-based data is subject to ferromagnetic and mechanical failure.
13. *Level-1 security of your vital data.
Advantages:
1. TM is very easy to use either in automatic mode or in 1-click backups.
2. TM is a perfect novice level simplex backup single-layer security save against internal HD failure or corruption.
3. TM can easily provide a seamless no-gap policy of active data that is often not easily capable in HD clones or HD archives (only if the user is lazy is making data saves).
#2. HD archives
Drawbacks:
1. Like all HD-based data is subject to ferromagnetic and mechanical failure.
2. Unless the user ritually copies working active data to HD external archives, then there is a time-gap of potential missing data; as such users must be proactive in archiving data that is being worked on or recently saved or created.
Advantages:
1. Fills the gap left in a week or 2-week-old HD clone, as an example.
2. Simplex no-software data storage that is isolated and autonomous from the computer (in most cases).
3. HD archives are the best idealized storage source for storing huge and multi-terabytes of data.
4. Best-idealized 1st platform redundancy for data protection.
5. *Perfect primary tier and level-2 security of your vital data.
#3. HD clones (see below for full advantages / drawbacks)
Drawbacks:
1. HD clones can be incrementally updated to hourly or daily, however this is time consuming and HD clones are, often, a week or more old, in which case data between today and the most fresh HD clone can and would be lost (however this gap is filled by use of HD archives listed above or by a TM backup).
2. Like all HD-based data is subject to ferromagnetic and mechanical failure.
Advantages:
1. HD clones are the best, quickest way to get back to 100% full operation in mere seconds.
2. Once a HD clone is created, the creation software (Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper) is no longer needed whatsoever, and unlike TM, which requires complex software for its operational transference of data, a HD clone is its own bootable entity.
3. HD clones are unconnected and isolated from recent corruption.
4. HD clones allow a “portable copy” of your computer that you can likewise connect to another same Mac and have all your APPS and data at hand, which is extremely useful.
5. Rather than, as many users do, thinking of a HD clone as a “complimentary backup” to the use of TM, a HD clone is superior to TM both in ease of returning to 100% quickly, and its autonomous nature; while each has its place, TM can and does fill the gap in, say, a 2 week old clone. As an analogy, the HD clone itself is the brick wall of protection, whereas TM can be thought of as the mortar, which will fill any cracks in data on a week, 2-week, or 1-month old HD clone.
6. Best-idealized 2nd platform redundancy for data protection, and 1st level for system restore of your computers internal HD. (Time machine being 2nd level for system restore of the computer’s internal HD).
7. *Level-2 security of your vital data.
HD cloning software options:
1. SuperDuper HD cloning software APP (free)
2. Carbon Copy Cloner APP (will copy the recovery partition as well)
3. Disk utility HD bootable clone.
#4. Online archives
Drawbacks:
1. Subject to server failure or due to non-payment of your hosting account, it can be suspended.
2. Subject, due to lack of security on your part, to being attacked and hacked/erased.
Advantages:
1. In case of house fire, etc. your data is safe.
2. In travels, and propagating files to friends and likewise, a mere link by email is all that is needed and no large media needs to be sent across the net.
3. Online archives are the perfect and best-idealized 3rd platform redundancy for data protection.
4. Supremely useful in data isolation from backups and local archives in being online and offsite for long-distance security in isolation.
5. *Level-1.5 security of your vital data.
#5. DVD professional archival media
Drawbacks:
1. DVD single-layer disks are limited to 4.7Gigabytes of data.
2. DVD media are, given rough handling, prone to scratches and light-degradation if not stored correctly.
Advantages:
1. Archival DVD professional blank media is rated for in excess of 100+ years.
2. DVD is not subject to mechanical breakdown.
3. DVD archival media is not subject to ferromagnetic degradation.
4. DVD archival media correctly sleeved and stored is currently a supreme storage method of archiving vital data.
5. DVD media is once written and therefore free of data corruption if the write is correct.
6. DVD media is the perfect ideal for “freezing” and isolating old copies of data for reference in case newer generations of data become corrupted and an older copy is needed to revert to.
7. Best-idealized 4th platform redundancy for data protection.
8. *Level-3 (highest) security of your vital data.
[*Level-4 data security under development as once-written metallic plates and synthetic sapphire and likewise ultra-long-term data storage]
#6. Cloud based storage
Drawbacks:
1. Cloud storage can only be quasi-possessed.
2. No genuine true security and privacy of data.
3. Should never be considered for vital data storage or especially long-term.
4. *Level-0 security of your vital data.
Advantages:
1. Quick, easy and cheap storage location for simplex files for transfer to keep on hand and yet off the computer.
2. Easy source for small-file data sharing.
#7. Network attached storage (NAS) and JBOD storage
Drawbacks:
1. Subject to RAID failure and mass data corruption.
2. Expensive to set up initially.
3. Can be slower than USB, especially over WiFi.
4. Mechanically identical to USB HD backup in failure potential, higher failure however due to RAID and proprietary NAS enclosure failure.
Advantages:
1. Multiple computer access.
2. Always on and available.
3. Often has extensive media and application server functionality.
4. Massive capacity (also its drawback) with multi-bay NAS, perfect for full system backups on a larger scale.
5. *Level-2 security of your vital data.
JBOD (just a bunch of disks / drives) storage
Identical to NAS in form factor except drives are not networked or in any RAID array, rather best thought of as a single USB feed to multiple independent drives in a single powered large enclosure. Generally meaning a non-RAID architecture.
Drawbacks:
1. Subject to HD failure but not RAID failure and mass data corruption.
Advantages:
1. Simplex multi-drive independent setup for mass data storage.
2. Very inexpensive dual purpose HD storage / access point.
3. *Level-2 security of your vital data.
Bare hard drives and docks. The most reliable and cheapest method of hard drive data storage, archives, and redundancies
The best method for your data archives and redundancies, which is also the least expensive, the most reliable, and the most compact option is the purchase of naked hard drives and at least one USB 3.0 HD dock ($40 roughly).
While regarding Time Machine and your Macbook or desktop, your primary backup is best saved to a conventional USB (or Firewire / thunderbolt) hard drive inside an enclosure, the most important part of your data protection begins after your 1st / primary Time Machine / backup; and these are your secondary (most important) data storage devices, archives and their redundancies.
However bare hard drives and docks (below) also work perfectly as a Time Machine backup, this is for home use, since the docking station is certainly not very portable as a notebook Time Machine backup device should be; nor should bare HD be packed around with a notebook, rather remain at home or office.
Six terabytes of 2.5" HD pictured below in a very compact space.
Bare hard drives and docks have the lowest cost, the highest reliability, and take up the smallest storage space
Drawbacks:
1. Care and knowledge in general handling of naked hard drives (how not to shock a bare HD, and how to hold them properly). Not a genuine drawback.
Advantages:
1. By far the least expensive method of mass HD storage on a personal basis. Highest quality naked HD can be purchased in bulk very cheap.
2. Eliminates the horrible failure point of SATA bridges and interfaces between external drives and the computer.
3. Per square foot you can store more terabytes of data this way than any other.
4. Fast, easy, no fuss and most simplex method of data storage on hard drives.
Time Machine is a system backup, not a data backup
Important data you “don’t dare lose” should not be considered ultimately safe, or ideally stored (at the very least not as sole copy of same) on your Time Machine backup. Hourly and daily fluctuations of your system OS, applications, and software updates is the perfect focus for the simple user to conduct ‘click it and forget it’ backups of the entire system and files on the Macbook HD.
Bootable clones are the choice of professionals and others in that Time Machine cannot be booted from and requires a working HD to retrieve data from (meaning another computer). Your vital data needs to be and should be ‘frozen’ on some form of media storage, either in a clone, as an archived HD containing important files, or on DVD blank archival media.
A file that is backed up to Time Machine is unsafe in that if that file is deleted off the computer by accident or lost otherwise, that file will likewise vanish from Time Machine as it reflects changes on the internal computer HD/SSD.

Need new backup solution for vMware vm's

Anthony,
There are a number of products out there that will meet your requirements. For example, depending on your VMware license you could use VDP. There are other vendors who leverage the VMware host API to get VM snapshots. StorageCraft offers a software solution that will back up your VMs and store them in your data center or on portable media. We create byte/sector level images of your systems that you can quickly restore to the same or to a new environment (like moving from Hyper-V to VMware) or mount as a shareable volume for easy file/folder recovery.
Whichever solution you choose, be sure to test it in your environment so you know it will meet your specific needs and budget. Let me know if you have any questions about StorageCraft products and applicable discounts.
Cheers!

Greetings:I recently became in charge of our server infrastructure and I'm trying to figure out the best backup software for our needs.We currently have BackupAssist to handle hyper-v vm's, but I will be migrating all of them off and will solely have vmware vm's.At my previous job they used vranger for backing up the vm's an backup exec for the shared data drivesCurrently we backup everything to usb drives (firesafe/water proof) with backup assist, but I don't think this will work well with vsphere.We have 3 hosts with 5 cpu's total and might add a 6th cpu sooner or later.I'm looking for a backup solution that won't break the bank as we don't have a huge budget. I do work for a University, so education discounts would be great.I've looked into veeam, but haven't tested it nor have I priced it out.The servers are in a data center, so...
This topic first appeared in the Spiceworks Community

What's the best external backup solution for the 2011 MacBook Air?

I'm really considering moving to a new 2011 13" MacBook Air for my primary machine and I'm curious to know what ya'll might suggest for the ideal backup solution.
Currently I use a Firewire 800 drive with my MacBook Pro consisting of a Bootable OS backup, Media volume backup, Time Machine backup + blank volume for files.
The current external options available —Thunderbolt release date anyone?—are: USB 2.0 and Time Capsule. Lately—and a first up until now—I've started thinking about potentialy moving my backup solution online. I'm curious if anyone has experience with an affordable, simple, online solution?
Also, don't suppose any kind of storage solutions could utilize the SD card slot in any way?
I look forward to hearing about your backup solutions!
All the best,
—Jordan

Redundancy is more important than speed when it comes to backup.
I like a have a clone of my internal drive to an external drive of the same size. If your internal drive fails you can boot from your external clone. I use SuperDuper!
If your data is important to you, you should keep a backup off-site and have more than one backup set.
Cloud storage is an option if you have fast broadband and small data volumes.
I like the simplicity of Time Machine with Time Capsule for incremental and version backups.
Rather than invest in Thunderbolt (expensive and fast), invest in redundancy (cheap, slow).

NON 3rd party offsite server backup solutions....?

Can anyone recommend a method of an off-site server backup solution that doesn't involve a 3rd party company?
I'm new to server admin and the company I work for is sitting on tons of really, really confidential and sensitive data that we ardently protect on-site, but with all the inclemental weather we've been getting lately (and horror stories from other local businesses regarding their server rooms flooding and such) we've been considering options for offsite backups, but don't want an outside source to have any access to our server contents/data/info in way way shape or form (as in: our backups would be on one of their servers---we don't want to go that route).
Right now we CCC everything everyday to an on-site external drive and then CCCing the server backups onto another external hard drive which then gets taken off-site to the admin's home and brought back in when a backup is going to be made (about once a week for that one).
Any thoughts?
We're absolutely not above buying a second server and running it out of somebody's house for this purpose...but the details of how to configure it as a backup server aren't very clear to me.
Any help is appreciated!
Thanks!
Is there a better way to do this?

ssh/rsync works well for me at home -- local server with a backup copy plus a copy on my brother's server nearly 3000 miles away. Of course, I recommend shipping physical media containing an initial backup to the offsite backup location first to save on bandwidth and time. (Depending on your connection.)
My script is basically:
{quote}
backup()
    src=$1
    dst=$2
    rsync -abz --delete --delete-excluded $src $dst
    echo "Backup starts: `/bin/date`"
    echo ""
    backup /Volumes/backup/Backups.backupdb/computername/Latest/ \
        onsite_server:computername
    backup /Volumes/backup/Backups.backupdb/computername/Latest/ \
        offsite_server:computername
    echo ""
    echo "Backup ends: `/bin/date`"
} > backup.log
rsync -abqz backup.log offsite_server:backup.log
ssh offsite_server "~/bin/backup-complete.sh"
{quote}
backup-complete.sh just emails me using the contents of backup.log as the email body. I used keys for authentication.

Easy Server 2012 backup solutions with tape support?

We have several smaller to midsized customers that have invested money in tape drives and tapes. They are using Symantec BackupExec on Server 2003 / 2008 and 2008 R2. Unfortunately, Symantec postponed Server 2012 support in their products many times
already. This fact costs us many business opportunities to upgrade infrastructures to Server 2012.
DPM 2012 is good for larger customers, but less suited for smaller companies (and the DPM "philosophy change" of the backup procedures, compared to older tape based backup solutions is an obstacle as well.)
So we are looking for EASY backup solutions that support tape drives and server 2012. The "perfect" product for us would be just a tape driver and an extension to the integrated Windows Server Backup that would allow to store backups on tapes,
the same way that Windows Backup allows backups to network shared folders.
Does anyone knows EASY backup software that provides this functionality? I'm also very interested in feedback from peoples that have successfully used such products on Server 2012 and are satisfied with them.
Thank you all in advance for any help.
Franz

Looks like we are in the same boat here with 2012.
For all its trouble, BackupExec has been instrumental for us in providing our customers with a backup application that no other software vendor has been able to match. This includes:
1) Granular backup and restore of Exchange allowing the restore of individual mailboxes and single mail items
2) The same Granular backup and restore of Hyper-V's VMs
3) The ability to backup to Tape, Removable USB HDD and NAS and Network shares
Not even Shadow Protect cuts the mustard anymore – it’s become simply “stupid”.
Although we love the simplicity and robustness of Windows Backup, there are some very serious deficiencies including;
1) The extreme difficulty of adding additional USB HDD after the backup schedule has been created. I believe that this has partially been resolved in R2 but in 2012 it was a utter mess-up. We
resorted to hooking up two 5-port USB Powered Hubs so we could make sure that all USB HDDs could be included in the schedule - what a mission! One blown hub after the other - couldn't find one that could handle the electrical current load of 5x USB HDDs!
2) No Granular restore ability of nothing... had to resort back to the "old school" ESEUTIL "after" restoring the entire Exchange database to alternate location.
3) Backup to a Network Share is pathetic - can't store more than the current backup. What use is that? Had to resort to backing up to Network Share then including that backup in another Windows backup - go figure!
Like Franz, our customers have invested HEAVILY in Tape Drive hardware (some of which cost the customer in excess of $8000) and that excludes the cost of Symantec BackupExec.
Although BackupExec 2012 now supports Server 2012, the re-purchase of the software is not a consideration to most of our customers.
Sorry Franz, I don’t have a solution for Tape Drives yet. This is one reason why we have stayed away from deploying 2012 that already have a recent investment in Tape Drive technology.
However, because there is NO other backup solution that compares to Symantec BackupExec (version <2010), we have been successfully implementing a hybrid solution (which, unfortunately, still does not include Tape Drives) including our own business.
As BackupExec 2010 does not support Windows 2012 as a “Media Server” there IS a workaround in a “virtual environment”.
We have successfully installed BackupExec 2010 on a Hyper-V Virtual Server as the “media server” and targeted the backups to shared folders on both NAS and removable USB HDD shares (off the Host Server).
Although it works GREAT, there is still the serious deficiency of not been able to use Tape Drives (unless some really bright spark out there has an idea on how to make a Tape Drive accessible to a VM).
Another REALLY good solution in which we deployed just last week was to supply the customer with a dirt-cheap PC, install it with Windows 2008 and the Tape Drive and schedule all the normal (and yummy) BackupExec 2010 granular backups to. Remember, the BackupExec
agent WILL install and run just fine on Server 2012 - no problems there.
This has become an INSTANT hit and this is OUR solution – a very small price to pay for “real granular” backups to Tape Drive.
I hope that you find that the mentioned "good solution" a viable and cost-effective workaround.
Backup Exec DOES NOT support Windows 2012. I just got of the phone with them today April 24, 2014. I have been using BE since Seagate made version 7. Every product Symantec buys eventually turns to crap! I just left Symantec Endpoint
Protection after 13 years because it is unreliable and has very poor detection compared to other products. In fact, it is so bad, that Symantec won't participate in any third-party evaluations that they don't pay for such as AV-Comparatives.org.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Symantec!

Large Volume Backup Solution?

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