Duncan Shannon wrote: > Hello List- > > We are growing our datacenter... We are at 3 servers now, plan to add 3 > more soon, and maybe up to 10 over the next year. > > We are trying to evaluate our backup options. Id like to hear what the > list has to say... > > We see: > > 1. copy some files nightly to a central server (that is out of the > datacenter, but in the same building :) ) and burn them to cd every now > and then. Its about 70 gigs of data right now. > > 2. Put tapes on each machine, get lots of tapes. > > 3. Get a nicer tapedrive that can backup several machines on one tape > > are there other options that we should look at? > > thanks > duncan > > You should have multiple backup strategies. Copying files to a central server is a good, relatively cheap, and very accessible way to back up files. You should also have a backup that can be taken off-site - tapes work well for this, you could also look at writeable DVD's. Be sure that if you go the tape route that you will be able to read the tapes if your tape drive is destroyed along with your data-center. This used to be a huge issue, probably just a check list item now. Implement a backup verification policy early on, and periodically restore files and images to see if it all works. It kind of sucks when you are looking at the smoking ruins of your servers to realize your tape drives haven't worked for the last six months (been there, done that, happy I had a secondary backup strategy...). Kent _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list