Backup a home network...
Discussion
Best way to backup 1.1Tb of stuff... without using 200 DVD-5's or springing for DLT units. Doesn't need to be that portable as no where else of than the house to store it. But does need to be survivable, so would prefer not to have it on a constantly rotating disk due to bearing warp via heat.
Suggestions?
Suggestions?
So you don't want disk or tape? 
I'd suggest a low spec mirrored NAS system. Survivable (barring the house burning down) and if you use 500GB SATA disks then it shouldn't be too large.
Are you after something constantly backing up changes, or is a nightly incremental and weekly full backup sufficient? You could turn the NAS off most of the time with the latter...
I'd suggest a low spec mirrored NAS system. Survivable (barring the house burning down) and if you use 500GB SATA disks then it shouldn't be too large.
Are you after something constantly backing up changes, or is a nightly incremental and weekly full backup sufficient? You could turn the NAS off most of the time with the latter...
puggit said:
So you don't want disk or tape?
No, I don't want constantly rotating disks... I've lost more than one system through powering it down for maintenance (killing dust bunnies) and having the bearings keel over as they cool off. So I'm discounting internal drives. Disk packs are good although not seen one that's a TB+. Don't mind tape but don't want to pay corporate prices for high volume tape stuff, nor do I want to swap hundreds of DVD's for hundreds of tapes
Rich, how the hell does it manage that? Magic? Leaving most of it behind? 1.1TB of stuff won't fit on a 400Gb drive... even with super compression. Not that it would get much compression anyway a lot of this is compressed video, GHOST images, driver packages....
My original idea is 'here be dragons' on the data store front with each machine having a directory structure for the various odds and ends shared out... probably SMB/NFS. Spend a day sorting through the data, wire the machines up to the shares and as far as the documents go use rsync/synchToy.
ThePassenger said:
puggit said:
So you don't want disk or tape?
No, I don't want constantly rotating disks... I've lost more than one system through powering it down for maintenance (killing dust bunnies) and having the bearings keel over as they cool off. So I'm discounting internal drives. Disk packs are good although not seen one that's a TB+. Don't mind tape but don't want to pay corporate prices for high volume tape stuff, nor do I want to swap hundreds of DVD's for hundreds of tapes
Rich, how the hell does it manage that? Magic? Leaving most of it behind? 1.1TB of stuff won't fit on a 400Gb drive... even with super compression. Not that it would get much compression anyway a lot of this is compressed video, GHOST images, driver packages....
My original idea is 'here be dragons' on the data store front with each machine having a directory structure for the various odds and ends shared out... probably SMB/NFS. Spend a day sorting through the data, wire the machines up to the shares and as far as the documents go use rsync/synchToy.
They explain it with it actually doing it at a below cluster level.. meaning all that wasted space you have in something that takes up far more space by its inefficient usage of clusters.
I was using synchtoy previously
rich1231 said:
They explain it with it actually doing it at a below cluster level.. meaning all that wasted space you have in something that takes up far more space by its inefficient usage of clusters.
I was using synchtoy previously
I was using synchtoy previously
The term is slackspace, I am aware of it. However, in effect taring 1.1TB of data in to a single continuous stream isn't going to knock over 50% of it's usage off. I would guess for the description it's in effect producing a tar.gz and then mounting that for you to look at, which is nifty but well.... remember the old disk doublers?
I'm getting the impression that the only sensible way to approach this is to be blood thirsty about what is actually backed up and reduce the requirement down to that of a large disk pack.
Interesting article re the virtues of an Infrant ReadyNAS NV by Dave Nanian, creator of SuperDuper.
Leithen said:
Interesting article re the virtues of an Infrant ReadyNAS NV by Dave Nanian, creator of SuperDuper.
WHS does that with an easy to use interfac and no trouble setting up.
Also has a small install for each client that will co-ordinate backup scheduling
ThePassenger said:
rich1231 said:
They explain it with it actually doing it at a below cluster level.. meaning all that wasted space you have in something that takes up far more space by its inefficient usage of clusters.
I was using synchtoy previously
I was using synchtoy previously
The term is slackspace, I am aware of it. However, in effect taring 1.1TB of data in to a single continuous stream isn't going to knock over 50% of it's usage off. I would guess for the description it's in effect producing a tar.gz and then mounting that for you to look at, which is nifty but well.... remember the old disk doublers?
I'm getting the impression that the only sensible way to approach this is to be blood thirsty about what is actually backed up and reduce the requirement down to that of a large disk pack.
Go read about WHS and its architecture before you just jump on one small component of the way it does something.
it really is impressive and i can see it being popular.
rich1231 said:
ThePassenger said:
rich1231 said:
They explain it with it actually doing it at a below cluster level.. meaning all that wasted space you have in something that takes up far more space by its inefficient usage of clusters.
I was using synchtoy previously
I was using synchtoy previously
The term is slackspace, I am aware of it. However, in effect taring 1.1TB of data in to a single continuous stream isn't going to knock over 50% of it's usage off. I would guess for the description it's in effect producing a tar.gz and then mounting that for you to look at, which is nifty but well.... remember the old disk doublers?
I'm getting the impression that the only sensible way to approach this is to be blood thirsty about what is actually backed up and reduce the requirement down to that of a large disk pack.
Go read about WHS and its architecture before you just jump on one small component of the way it does something.
it really is impressive and i can see it being popular.
I agree - WHS in its current format (beta) is great for people who just want an easly life with data backup , I just hope they keep improving through the builds.
rich1231 said:
ThePassenger said:
rich1231 said:
They explain it with it actually doing it at a below cluster level.. meaning all that wasted space you have in something that takes up far more space by its inefficient usage of clusters.
I was using synchtoy previously
I was using synchtoy previously
The term is slackspace, I am aware of it. However, in effect taring 1.1TB of data in to a single continuous stream isn't going to knock over 50% of it's usage off. I would guess for the description it's in effect producing a tar.gz and then mounting that for you to look at, which is nifty but well.... remember the old disk doublers?
I'm getting the impression that the only sensible way to approach this is to be blood thirsty about what is actually backed up and reduce the requirement down to that of a large disk pack.
Go read about WHS and its architecture before you just jump on one small component of the way it does something.
it really is impressive and i can see it being popular.
Ok. Allow me to be more specific. It's backup solution is, in summary, a reworking of tar, rsync and cron. With the added bonus of piping the data stream straight to the compressor and possibly a loopback mount of this file for ease of tinkering. All wrapped up in a nice, easy to use interface... which is something I do give Microsoft credit for; they're the masters of making it idiot proof, just like AD is a simple interface to an LDAP based system.
I would even go as far as to say hitting it with a packet analyser would show it's almost... nearly... but not quite rsync, rather it's an embraced and extended rsync system (much like 2kAS's extended kerberos) and just funky enough to stop the real deal getting in the way (like 2 bytes different that Microsoft absolutely won't tell you want its for).
Popular? Maybe. Depends on pricing and if it'll come free with high-end Dell consumer units inplace of Vista.
But this aside, WHS does not and is not fit for my needs.
1. One of the machines is OS X based (G5 iMac)
2. Three of the machines are *nix based (two laptops and the media server).
The number of none Windows machines in the house far outnumbers the ones running Windows; which rules this out due to needing a client. Which is going to require a minimum of XP SP2 if not 'Vista only'. Also, remember, that iMac is a G5 it can't run Windows even if I wanted it to.
Installing WHS on the media machine is not an option. Unless the MythTV backend has become win32 friendly and Windows can do NFS without any additional tinkering or stability issues.
You can put it on this floppy disk that I've got the internet on, theres bound to be room
Just kidding
I'm guessing the bulk of it is mp3's, avi's, jpg's? How about keeping it all an a mirrored array, and every 6 months or whatever take half the mirror away, stick it in your fire safe and buy some new disks. This is balancing the probability of loosing both halves of a mirror simultaneously (or a human error) vs. the pain of loosing 6 months of 'new stock'.
Obviously have a separate more frequent system for day to day stuff e.g. college work, CV's, books, whatever (like rsync'ing it to a friends house) or something but I'm guessing that that stuff will be relatively manageable.
I guess what it comes down to is, if you want it cheap you've got to be flexible!
tata
N
Just kidding
I'm guessing the bulk of it is mp3's, avi's, jpg's? How about keeping it all an a mirrored array, and every 6 months or whatever take half the mirror away, stick it in your fire safe and buy some new disks. This is balancing the probability of loosing both halves of a mirror simultaneously (or a human error) vs. the pain of loosing 6 months of 'new stock'.
Obviously have a separate more frequent system for day to day stuff e.g. college work, CV's, books, whatever (like rsync'ing it to a friends house) or something but I'm guessing that that stuff will be relatively manageable.
I guess what it comes down to is, if you want it cheap you've got to be flexible!
tata
N
ThePassenger said:
rich1231 said:
ThePassenger said:
rich1231 said:
They explain it with it actually doing it at a below cluster level.. meaning all that wasted space you have in something that takes up far more space by its inefficient usage of clusters.
I was using synchtoy previously
I was using synchtoy previously
The term is slackspace, I am aware of it. However, in effect taring 1.1TB of data in to a single continuous stream isn't going to knock over 50% of it's usage off. I would guess for the description it's in effect producing a tar.gz and then mounting that for you to look at, which is nifty but well.... remember the old disk doublers?
I'm getting the impression that the only sensible way to approach this is to be blood thirsty about what is actually backed up and reduce the requirement down to that of a large disk pack.
Go read about WHS and its architecture before you just jump on one small component of the way it does something.
it really is impressive and i can see it being popular.
Ok. Allow me to be more specific. It's backup solution is, in summary, a reworking of tar, rsync and cron. With the added bonus of piping the data stream straight to the compressor and possibly a loopback mount of this file for ease of tinkering. All wrapped up in a nice, easy to use interface... which is something I do give Microsoft credit for; they're the masters of making it idiot proof, just like AD is a simple interface to an LDAP based system.
I would even go as far as to say hitting it with a packet analyser would show it's almost... nearly... but not quite rsync, rather it's an embraced and extended rsync system (much like 2kAS's extended kerberos) and just funky enough to stop the real deal getting in the way (like 2 bytes different that Microsoft absolutely won't tell you want its for).
Popular? Maybe. Depends on pricing and if it'll come free with high-end Dell consumer units inplace of Vista.
But this aside, WHS does not and is not fit for my needs.
1. One of the machines is OS X based (G5 iMac)
2. Three of the machines are *nix based (two laptops and the media server).
The number of none Windows machines in the house far outnumbers the ones running Windows; which rules this out due to needing a client. Which is going to require a minimum of XP SP2 if not 'Vista only'. Also, remember, that iMac is a G5 it can't run Windows even if I wanted it to.
Installing WHS on the media machine is not an option. Unless the MythTV backend has become win32 friendly and Windows can do NFS without any additional tinkering or stability issues.
good for you... you obviously like the sound of your own typing.. dont know why you are not advising Microsoft on the Strategy at the moment.
If you can be bothered to type all that you could have at least been bothered to look up the tech behind WHS.
Then though you are asking for a miracle solution, your choice is Disk, tape or DVD still
Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff