[Cialug] suggestions on HDD based backup

[Josh More]

I haven't had any problems with my NetGear.  However, my advice isn't brand specific (I should have made that more clear).  The general principle:  "Backup to a dedicated NAS, but a couple NASs and keep one off site" applies to whatever NAS you choose to use.

-Josh More, CISSP, GIAC-GSLC, GIAC-GCIH, RHCE, NCLP
morej at alliancetechnologies.net<mailto:morej at alliancetechnologies.net>
515-245-7701
________________________________
From: cialug-bounces at cialug.org [cialug-bounces at cialug.org] on behalf of Tim Wilson [tim_linux at wilson-home.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 12:03
To: Central Iowa Linux Users Group
Subject: Re: [Cialug] suggestions on HDD based backup

I work for a company that uses a Netgear ReadyNAS box, and I can say that we've had problems with it.  The last time the failure was so bad that we actually lost all backups stored on it.  From what I heard from our admin, it sounded like more than one drive failed, and we were never notified that the first drive had failed.

Couple that with some domain renaming that happened to occur at the same time, and we had permission issues backing up to our own directories.  My directory was owned by someone else.  It was like it scrambled the IDs and lost who's ID went to which directory.

Our admin has also read horror stories about their support.  A problem was reported, and it took 2 years for someone from Netgear to get back to them.  By that time, they had replaced the system with OpenBSD (I believe), and hadn't had a problem since.

In their defense, our unit is pretty old, and I think it pre-dates Netgear buying the company that made it.  So maybe the ones made by Netgear are better.


On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:36 AM, Josh More <MoreJ at alliancetechnologies.net<mailto:MoreJ at alliancetechnologies.net>> wrote:
I'd buy a few cheap Netgear ReadyNAS boxes, put two 1T drives in each and use rsync to backup to multiple sets.  Once a week, swap devices.

No drives to change, setup is fairly simple and the data sets are mirrored, so if a hard drive dies, you have time to deal.



-Josh More, CISSP, GIAC-GSLC, GIAC-GCIH, RHCE, NCLP
morej at alliancetechnologies.net<mailto:morej at alliancetechnologies.net>
515-245-7701
________________________________
From: cialug-bounces at cialug.org<mailto:cialug-bounces at cialug.org> [cialug-bounces at cialug.org<mailto:cialug-bounces at cialug.org>] on behalf of Tim Champion [timchampion at gmail.com<mailto:timchampion at gmail.com>]
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 11:27
To: cialug
Subject: [Cialug] suggestions on HDD based backup

We are planning on going to a hard drive based backup system at work. We are a non-profit on a tight budget (I can spend about $1500 on this total), so a enterprise level disk-to-disk system isn't feasible. The current plan is to scrap the 160GB DLT backup system, and back up to SATA desktop hard drives instead.   A 1TB hard drive is about $80 ($70 today at newegg by the way), so the cost per GB is pretty cheap. They would also not require a tape drive in the event of an actual disaster.  A SATA hard drive could go in just about any computer to start the recovery.

Anyway, I'm trying to figure out what to use to be able to easily swap out the hard drives on a daily basis since we are on a 2 week rotation. I'm considering an external eSATA hard drive dock like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121046
or one of the many 5.25 inch internal bays with caddies. The disadvantage there is buying 10 caddies on top of the drive bay. I also once found an internal 5.25 bay that didn't take caddies (just stick a bare drive in), but heck if I can find it now.

I'm thinking about getting a few padded carrying cases to take the drives off site. and keep the anti-static bags the drives come in.

Any suggestions, do's & don't's would be appreciated.

Tim Champion
timchampion at gmail.com<mailto:timchampion at gmail.com>

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Tim
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