Making copies of data so that the copies may be used to restore the original after a data loss event, or for historical retention.
60
votes
8answers
3k views
How to backup 20+TB of data?
We have a NAS server at the company I work for that is being used for storing photography sessions. Each session is approximately 100gb. Over the last couple of years this server has accumulated 10+ ...
45
votes
13answers
17k views
Why is RAID not a backup?
When someone mentions RAID in a conversation about backups, invariably someone declares that "RAID is not a backup". Sure, for striping, that's true. But whats the difference between redundancy and a ...
39
votes
5answers
1k views
Confidential Documentation and the role of the Sysadmin
I've got another interesting one.
I'm about to backup and reinstall the HR Administrator's PC. I suspect that the fastest way to do this is to use the Windows 7 Transfer tool, and create a backup ...
38
votes
15answers
2k views
Should I keep my ex-employer's data?
Following my brief reign as System Monkey, I am now faced with a dilemma:
I did successfully create a backup and a test VM, both on my laptop, as no computer at work had enough free disk space. I ...
27
votes
11answers
6k views
GIT as a backup tool (am I a silly person?)
So I was in the shower this morning thinking about stuff, and I had an idea which may be terrible or may be brilliant I'm not sure.
On a server, install git
cd /
git init
git add .
git commit -a -m ...
25
votes
14answers
7k views
Is it safe to store data on a hard drive for a long time?
Is it safe to backup data to a hard drive and then leave it for a number of years?
Assuming the file system format can still be read, is this a safe thing to do. Or is it better to continually ...
23
votes
6answers
19k views
SQL Server (2005/2008): Does full backup truncate the log in full recovery mode
I've just read through a lot of MSDN documentation and I think I understand the different recovery models and the concept of a backup chain. I still have one question:
Does a full database backup ...
22
votes
7answers
745 views
Cliffhanger: The backups are right… here… right?
At my work, backups have a surprisingly low priority. The backup strategy was implemented a while ago, and since then it's just assumed the backups are fine. If you ask the sysadmins, they'll say ...
21
votes
7answers
3k views
Backing up a 22 GB MySQL database daily
Right now I am able to do the backup using mysqldump. But I have to take down the web server AND it takes around 5 minutes to do the backup. If I don't take down the web server, it takes forever and ...
20
votes
8answers
1k views
How do I protect business critical data against fire?
We have 72 hard drives that contain our webcast inventory. The number is increasing. We're located in a frame building and we are afraid of not only fire, but catastrophic fire.
I've priced fireproof ...
19
votes
4answers
953 views
Are encrypted backups a good idea?
I'm in charge of a small set of laptops and wanted to get some sort of automated remote (over WAN) backups going; the backups would be going to a RAID drive. Because we don't really have a secure ...
18
votes
11answers
7k views
Does an unplugged hard drive used for data archival deteriorate?
If I were to archive data on a hard drive, unplug it, and set it on a (not dusty, temperature-controlled) shelf somewhere, would that drive deteriorate much?
How does the data retention of an ...
18
votes
8answers
50k views
SQL Server 2008 Express - “Best” backup solution?
What backup solutions would you recommend when using SQL Server 2008 Express? I'm pretty new to SQL Server, but as I'm coming from an MySQL background I thought of setting up replication on another ...
17
votes
4answers
9k views
How does dropbox version/upload large files? [closed]
I have a free dropbox account (2GB), and I was wondering how the versioning of large files works.
I have a full backup of all my webfiles that sites @ just over 1GB. After the initial upload of 1GB, ...
16
votes
12answers
2k views
Is there a good way to backup a petabyte of data and store it?
I'm starting to see clients with hundreds of terabytes of data (in SQL Server installations). As the total volume of data in some enterprises approaches meaningful fractions of a petabyte, I'd like to ...
16
votes
8answers
23k views
What security risks are there with employees using Dropbox?
Are there any particular security concerns to keep in mind with company-wide use of Dropbox file sharing / versioning / backing up, and are there specific options or settings that would be recommended ...
15
votes
12answers
5k views
Should a backup server use RAID?
I was asked to set up a new backup server using Symantec Backup Exec that stores to hard disk instead of tape, because the backup size is outgrowing tape capacity.
I was wondering does it really ...
15
votes
9answers
7k views
Automatic postgres backup
What is the best way to automatically backup a Postgres database on Linux every day?
15
votes
5answers
2k views
Software for using Amazon S3 as backup service
What software do you recommend for using Amazon S3 as a placeholder for daily backups?
I need it to be fully automated, and easy to restore data.
14
votes
6answers
2k views
Cost effective, long term archival of video and image data? ~50 TB
My lab is in the process of setting up a small server that holds data (mostly video and image data, plus a few documents) for the project our group is working on at a moment in time.
Historically, ...
14
votes
8answers
8k views
Is there a working Linux backup solution that uses inotify?
It takes forever to back up. Before we can trust btrfs or ZFS to backup incremental snapshots, wouldn't it be nice if there was a daemon that used inotify to keep track of which files had actually ...
14
votes
7answers
519 views
Long-term storage of Business Critical data
This is a really tricky one, and to some extent it's not a technical problem, and might not belong here, but
Server Fault is for system
administrators ... who manage or
maintain computers in ...
14
votes
3answers
2k views
Tape encryption management & best practices
I want to enable encryption on all of my backup tapes. I more-or-less know how to do this technically, but the procedural and human elements of implementing this are tricky.
I use HP LTO4 drives ...
13
votes
7answers
962 views
Best practices for backup checking?
It is a common situation, when administrator makes system for automatic backuping and forgets it. Only after a system fails administrator notices, that backup system has broken before or backups are ...
13
votes
3answers
561 views
How do you apply development practices like version control, testing and continuous integration/deployment to system administration?
Imagine you're going to manage a number of servers with a number of different services that's used by a number of people. Now say you want to reconfigure or replace some software on one of those ...
13
votes
6answers
7k views
AWS S3 Bucket Backups
Is there any way to recover from accidental deletions of an Amazon S3 Bucket?
We've got critical info in our buckets and I need to mitigate the risk of accidental or malicious deletions of the bucket ...
13
votes
12answers
6k views
Complete restore of linux system
I am familiar with using rsync to back up various files from my system but what is the best way to completely restore a machine.
What I have tried in the past is:
Do a basic format/reinstall from ...
13
votes
2answers
6k views
How to keep the full path with rsync?
When backing up with rsync, How do I keep the full directory structure?
For example, the remote server is saturn, and I want to backup saturn's /home/udi/files/pictures to a local directory named ...
13
votes
5answers
408 views
Encrypted offsite backups - where to store the encryption key?
In addition to regular onsite backups (kept in a fire resistant safe), we also send tapes offsite once a month, encrypted with AES. So if our site is one day vaporised by an alien heat ray, we should ...
13
votes
3answers
2k views
How to exclude indexes from backups in SQL Server 2008
Our nightly full (and periodic differential) backups are becoming quite large, due mostly to the amount of indexes on our tables; roughly half the backup size is comprised of indexes.
We're using the ...
13
votes
1answer
2k views
From bad sector to “damaged file” - did it for Linux/ext3, can I do it for Windows/NTFS?
When a SMART check on a disk reports a bad sector, it is important to be able to identify the file that has the bad sector - and restore it from backups. Below, I show how I did this for my Linux/ext3 ...
12
votes
9answers
17k views
LVM snapshots as a backup strategy
How viable as a backup strategy would be periodical LVM snapshots of xen domU's? Pros, cons, any gotchas?
To me it seems like the perfect solution for a fast, brainless restore. Any investigation ...
12
votes
13answers
2k views
What backup solution you use for linux servers
What backup solutions you use for linux server in production environment? Do you prefer open source or commercial products?
What you consider to be essential features in backup software?
Which ...
12
votes
15answers
7k views
Build a low-power file server
I would like to build a file server for backups.
The server needs to be available 24/7 in a mixed Windows/Linux network, but service should not exceed 1 hour per day.
Thats why power consumption is my ...
12
votes
10answers
1k views
What good free software is available for backing up a few PCs?
I have a network of about 30 Windows PCs.
What good free software is available that will automatically (scheduled) make backups (not whole HDD but only certain folders) for these PCs and save on a ...
12
votes
7answers
1k views
Backup MySQL Server
What's the best way to back up a MySQL server? I would like a method that doesn't require bringing down the server. Is something like InnoDB hot backup necessary, or can I just use the backup tools ...
12
votes
11answers
2k views
How do you do the offsite hard drive backups?
I have been doing hard drive backups for a while, which I believe a lot of you guys do as well, but am having trouble figuring out a better way storing them offsite. I am wondering how you guys out ...
12
votes
6answers
841 views
Downtimeless MySQL backups on a budget
My current MySQL backup scenario is to replicate our db to a second server and run mysqldump on that server to remove any downtime from table or row locking. This is working well but costs $150 per ...
12
votes
4answers
603 views
Sharepoint 2007 Backup Solutions?
SharePoint 2007 comes in with a built-in backup facility, but I've heard bad things about it. Namely, you can backup but not restore the configuration database, and generally that restoring is always ...
12
votes
7answers
2k views
Setting up a new backup scheme
I'm in the process of designing my first ever backup scheme. I'm completely new to managing data backup, and there are some concepts that I don't totally understand. Here's what I've got so far, and ...
11
votes
23answers
10k views
What is the simplest and fastest way to transfer large file through a Windows network?
I have a Window Server 2000 machine running MS SQL Server that stores over 20GB of data. The database is backed-up every day to the second harddrive. I want to transfer those backup files to another ...
11
votes
7answers
14k views
Sync LVM snapshots to backup server
I have a number of Xen virtual machines running on a number of Linux servers. These VMs store their disk images in Linux LVM volumes with device names along the lines of /dev/xenVG/SERVER001OS and so ...
11
votes
10answers
7k views
Linux - What directories should I exclude when backing up a server?
I'm backing up a linux server and storing it on some other server. I started off with a simple
rsync -aPh --del server.example.com:/ /mnt/backup
Then someone pointed out that I shouldn't back up ...
11
votes
6answers
12k views
What ways there are to backup repositories for Windows VisualSVN?
At this moment we are using Visual SVN and we are backing up the entire repositories directory for visual svn. This backs up the entire data for each repository inside our svn engine. I am curious ...
11
votes
3answers
5k views
How safe are Windows Active Directory Schema Updates?
I'm trying to get a better understanding about how Active Directory handles Schema updates, specifically how safe the procedure actually is given how critical AD is and given the range of situations ...
11
votes
3answers
742 views
Is this a valid backup strategy for MongoDB?
I've got a single dedicated server with a MongoDB database of around 10GB. I need to do daily backups, but I can't have downtime with the database. Is it possible to use a replica set on a single disk ...
11
votes
2answers
3k views
Are RDX removable disks a good replacement for LTO tape?
Over a period of three weeks, I experienced six complete failures of LTO-1 and LTO-2 tape drives at client sites. Some had failed mechanisms. Others lost the ability to write reliably. These were HP ...
10
votes
5answers
1k views
How can I backup multi-gigabyte databases in MySQL? Bonus points for speedier restores
I have a 4GB database in MySQL. How can I back it up? Furthermore, is there a way that I can speed up the restoration process in the event that I need to recover?
I currently use a cron job every ...
10
votes
10answers
12k views
Should I build my own or buy a cheap NAS? [closed]
I've looked at this question and gotten some ideas from it. Assume I want something that runs quietly with raid support. I see the choices as being buy a home NAS solution most of which appear to be ...
10
votes
7answers
1k views
How do you backup a storage server?
I'm looking at implementing a very large storage server to be used as live NAS for several other servers (all Linux-based).
By very large, I mean between 4TB and 20TB usable space (although it's ...
