# Small Company Server Backup Solutions **URL:** \ **Category:** NYSpeed Off Topic\ **Created:** [June 2, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943 "2010-06-02T15:18:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![walter](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/walter/32/7202_2.png) [@walter](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/walter)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/1 "2010-06-02T15:18:34Z")
IT Nerds – I am working with a small company, about 50 users at this site right now, that are all migrating our data to servers and off local PCs. The worthless contract IT group we have has a piss poor box set-up with a 500GB HD in a RAID 1 set-up. I’m a bit anxious about losing tall of the data and am getting tired of mirroring it to my laptop every night (greeaaaat system). What should I be looking for in terms of providing some backup for this data? I’m used to having automated nightly tape backups that were over written once a month or something like that, but I’d think in this day and age I could get ET to phone home and dump all of the stuff to a remote server so it was backed up off site too, suggestions on what I should be demanding from these nuckleheads? ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Omerta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Joe\_Omerta](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Joe_Omerta)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2010, 3:45pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/2 "2010-06-02T15:45:24Z")
[http://www.ecost.com/Detail/External+Storage/Buffalo/LS-W20TGLR1/43006058.aspx?navid=155441514](http://www.ecost.com/Detail/External+Storage/Buffalo/LS-W20TGLR1/43006058.aspx?navid=155441514) ---
**Author:** ![ryanmcell](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/ryanmcell/32/7510_2.png) [@ryanmcell](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/ryanmcell)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2010, 5:16pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/3 "2010-06-02T17:16:19Z")
What kind of budget do you have for purchasing? How much data is between all 50 users that is being backed up? ---
**Author:** ![walter](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/walter/32/7202_2.png) [@walter](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/walter)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2010, 5:53pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/4 "2010-06-02T17:53:45Z")
Another RAID 1/0 hardly seems like the answer. Budget probably isn’t an issue for the right solution. Right now we have ~100GB of data. It is mostly word files, the amount of content change on a daily basis probably isn’t HUGE. We do have large piles of CAD files, but those aren’t updated all that often. ---
**Author:** ![Clean\_Baldy](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/clean_baldy/32/7308_2.png) [@Clean\_Baldy](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Clean_Baldy)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2010, 7:52pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/5 "2010-06-02T19:52:26Z")
I’ve always been a fan of LTO3 400/800GB backups for that amount of data. It allows for growth as well as off-site storage. At our one office with 22 users, we use a 114T. With 45 users we have a 132T. And I won’t get into what we have for our 250 user site… Dell PowerVault 132T library -\> holds 12 tapes so you don’t have to manually swap every day. Dell PowerVault 114T single drive -\> swap out the tape daily. LTO-3 400/800GB tapes are fairly inexpensive now Backup Exec 12.5 has always been a favorite of mine. Great support and works awesome once configured. I don’t know your budget, but I agree that a RAID-1 configuration just don’t cut it. ---
**Author:** ![walter](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/walter/32/7202_2.png) [@walter](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/walter)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2010, 7:57pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/6 "2010-06-02T19:57:14Z")
English motherfucker (or at least links). LTO-3 = tape backup accoridng to google. Is the benefit there that you aren’t using a proprietary tape? I’ve never looked in to this stuff before. 132T seems like a great option (changing tapes with no one responsible for it is going to be a bad idea). What about options for sending things off site? What does a 132T system start at? I’d assume that with 12 tapes I’d just keep taping over, perhaps with a once a week off site backup or something like that. Would be nice if I could do a differential backup to somewhere online. Like I said, I haven’t looked in to this much, was looking for suggestions on where to start. I appreciate the suggestions. Data is pretty priceless… I would think I could justify a good system, but I’m sure that is a battle you guys know more about than me. ---
**Author:** ![Gl1](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/gl1/32/5471_2.png) [@Gl1](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Gl1)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2010, 8:02pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/7 "2010-06-02T20:02:44Z")
I only work in the home user market, so i don’t know much about business backups. So is there anything for businesses like windows home server? it creates a nightly image of every hard drive in the network, but it’s only a differential image every night. ---
**Author:** ![LZ1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@LZ1](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/LZ1)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/8 "2010-06-03T03:31:07Z")
Do a LTO tape back up with backup exec Do tapes for Monday-Thursday Then do tapes for Week 1-Week 4 on every Friday and I would also suggest monthly. Depending on the amount of data you have you might be able to get away with 2 nights on one tape. Make sure someone does a test restore from time to time off the tapes I find people do tape backups for years and never test a restore then realize their tapes are shot. I would probably bring the data off site also. There are other solutions like offsite back up to a 3rd party site over a WAN link but that depends on how much you’re data changes from day to day and what kind of bandwidth you have. If you have a bigger budget you can look into a entry level MAID(massive array of idle disks) its basically a server with a bunch of harddrives and you’re back up software treats each HD like a tape in a tape drive. The benefit of this is quickly being able to restore data. ---
**Author:** ![ProgRocker](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/progrocker/32/5434_2.png) [@ProgRocker](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/ProgRocker)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 4:06am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/9 "2010-06-03T04:06:06Z")
> [@Gl@re](#): > > I only work in the home user market, so i don’t know much about business backups. So is there anything for businesses like windows home server? it creates a nightly image of every hard drive in the network, but it’s only a differential image every night. [http://www.symantec.com/business/products/family.jsp?familyid=backupexec](http://www.symantec.com/business/products/family.jsp?familyid=backupexec) ---
**Author:** ![walter](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/walter/32/7202_2.png) [@walter](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/walter)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 5:35am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/10 "2010-06-03T05:35:10Z")
> [@LZ](#): > > Do a LTO tape back up with backup exec > > Do tapes for Monday-Thursday > > Then do tapes for Week 1-Week 4 on every Friday and I would also suggest monthly. So tapes 1-4 would be daily for M-Th, tape 5 would be a backup of tapes 1-4 _and_ friday? > I would probably bring the data off site also. > something like taking the monthly tape to iron mtn or something? > If you have a bigger budget you can look into a entry level MAID(massive array of idle disks) its basically a server with a bunch of harddrives and you’re back up software treats each HD like a tape in a tape drive. The benefit of this is quickly being able to restore data. What are we talking (rough ball-park order of magnitude numbers) for an LTO system vs. MAID? ---
**Author:** ![LZ1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@LZ1](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/LZ1)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 5:55am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/11 "2010-06-03T05:55:56Z")
M-Th is daily backup Friday is just a daily back up that you save for a month. You could use iron mountain LTO 400/800 are anywhere from 1500 and up depending on internal external I just searched on google quickly It looks like LTO 3 400/800 30-40 a piece it looks like. I also don’t know what a entry level maid costs off hand I see if I can find some info most of the ones I worked with were for larger companies ---
**Author:** ![evane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6bbea6/32.png) [@evane](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/evane)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 7:54pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/12 "2010-06-03T19:54:07Z")
First question how much data currently and what is expected growth? Second question is taking data off site a requirement or not? If there is no offsite data requirement I would look at EMC Avamar Appliance it is realtively speaking low cost solution that can deduplicate(google for explainaton pretty simple concept) data. If you want to offsite look into buying a tape drive and using backup software and take tapes offsite. RAID is never a replacement for backups. ---
**Author:** ![LZ1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@LZ1](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/LZ1)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 4:23am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/13 "2010-06-04T04:23:11Z")
> [@evane](#): > > RAID is never a replacement for backups. lol people never understand that ---
**Author:** ![walter](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/walter/32/7202_2.png) [@walter](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/walter)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 5:23am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/14 "2010-06-04T05:23:37Z")
> [@evane](#): > > First question how much data currently and what is expected growth? 100GB, I’d guess a few GB/mo, nothing crazy. > Second question is taking data off site a requirement or not? > Not necessarily, but it would be nice in the event of a fire or something, it could be far less frequent than the routine backups. > If there is no offsite data requirement I would look at EMC Avamar Appliance it is realtively speaking low cost solution that can deduplicate(google for explainaton pretty simple concept) data. > If you want to offsite look into buying a tape drive and using backup software and take tapes offsite. EMC Avamar is a software solution for backing up over WAN/LAN it seems? ---
**Author:** ![boardjnky4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/96bed5/32.png) [@boardjnky4](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boardjnky4)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 5:56am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/15 "2010-06-04T05:56:07Z")
I know it seems silly, but why not just designate someone in the office (trustworthy and dedicated to sticking around) to take a copy of a tape home with them once a month? It’s not ideal, and certainly not nearly as good as an off-site backup service, but in the case of your office flaming up, you might actually have a chance of recovering the data. ---
**Author:** ![walter](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/walter/32/7202_2.png) [@walter](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/walter)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 6:06am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/16 "2010-06-04T06:06:35Z")
We’d send the tapes to Iron Mountain, not Joe Schmoe’s house. We have plenty of paper data that we’re required to keep by federal law, a tape a month won’t be an issue. ---
**Author:** ![evane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6bbea6/32.png) [@evane](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/evane)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 6:28am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/17 "2010-06-04T06:28:45Z")
> EMC Avamar is a software solution for backing up over WAN/LAN it seems? Negative, it can do WAN replication and wan backup but it is a Appliance (basically a server with web interface for configuration) and the box you want to back up gets a avamar client, it works almost like all other back options out there but it is disk based. Disk based is much faster and dedupe is a nice way to reduce your backup footprint over time. A idea solution if can be afford is use something like Avamar then spin off to tape from Avamar’s tape out and off site that. ---
**Author:** ![jimmyfloyd](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/jimmyfloyd/32/3077_2.png) [@jimmyfloyd](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/jimmyfloyd)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 6:46am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/18 "2010-06-04T06:46:41Z")
This is a great topic. Thanks Walter for Bringing it up. My office is in a similar situation where backup isn’t really taken seriously. I tend to back everything I have up to an external drive and bring it home, but it is far from a good solution. I’ll have to look into some of the solutions that were given here to see if they fit what we are looking at as well. ---
**Author:** ![walter](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/walter/32/7202_2.png) [@walter](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/walter)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 12:42pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/19 "2010-06-08T12:42:59Z")
The boner of a IT group replied with the fact that we’re using a USB backup nightly and differential backups nightly to remote server. He told me “no one in industry uses tape any more” I made the ::ugh::picard: He does drive a nice white M5 though. ---
**Author:** ![LZ1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@LZ1](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/LZ1)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 1:14pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943/20 "2010-06-08T13:14:13Z")
Ask him what the industry standard is… I can tell you its not USB :lol: Remote network backup is great if you have the bandwidth and you can trust storing your data somewhere in the cloud. [Next page](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-company-server-backup-solutions/155943.md?page=2)