Data backup/storage solution for DRP

[k.jacko]

Hi all,

please bear with me on this, it may be long, but i'd really appreciate some input from the more experienced gurus on this.

As I.T. Manager in our company i have to put a Disaster Recvoery Plan in action for the I.T.

Currently we have an LTO tape drive in a Dell tower server which backups up 500gb fully once per week (takes 4 tapes and 3 days), with weekday incrementals after that (takes 1 tape), all across the whole system of 4 servers.
Now, here are the options (loosely) that i'm thinking of;

1. Install an autoloader with 8 or 16 tapes so that backup doesn't take 3 days due to manual loading of tapes. Take tapes off-site.
Pros: cheaper, faster. Cons: not as reliable imho.

2. Install NAS or SAN box to hold all data. Create wireless bridge (100Mbit) to our other site 200 yards away. Use some appropriate synchronsing software that will on its first run, probably take a weekend to sync. all the data across to the other site, and from then on, should be just nightly sync'ing of the data changes during that day.
This could also work in reverse for the other unit, so that their data is store off-site too.
Pros: more reliable? less human interaction to screw it up. Cons: Price

Ok, so does anyone have any opinions on the 2 options i'm exploring?
Personally i like the sound of option 2, so can anyone recommend an appropriate program to sync the data the way i want it?
Do you have any other options to put forward?

Oh, i'm also looking at putting a leased line in, but that won't be fast enough to use as data transfer of this magnitude. Does anyone in the UK have any recommended suppliers of leased line?

Thanks for any advice offered.

 

[Nodsu]

Filesystem synchronisation is not that good of an idea.. What if the synchronisation happens after disaster has struck and good data on the "backup" gets overwritten? You need to have several copies of backed up data at any point in time.

I would recommend - daily incrementals and weekly full backups to disk. Either a plain single huge SATA drive or some sort of an array (you can go up to monster standalone SCSI RAID enclosures here) depending on your desire for speed and/or redundancy. Backup to disk is fast and (selective) restore is amazingly fast. You can use filesystem synchronisation or backup software - doesn't matter.

Copy the backup disk contents to tape at any suitable time for offsite keeping or archival. Still needs an autoloader or a library for that I suppose...

If you are interested in disastoer recovery and archival is not necessary at all, then you can foget about tape completely. Just make several copies of the backup disk(s) whenever you feel like it.