On Mon, 2003-08-11 at 11:04, Richard Humphrey wrote: > This isnt directly related to RedHat, but I figured someone could give > me a direction to go in. We are a small company (only 7-8 server) All > RedHat except for 1 Win2k server. We are growwing out of our backup > schemes as 1 of the servers we have can only backup 20GB of data and we > have surpassed that. Our DLT drive on the Windows Server isnt very > reliable (I think it is beyond its life cycle) and unfortunately none of > the other servers are backed up (but really need to be). I am looking at > Tape Loaders that will backup all the servers nightly. It seems that the > prices go from anywhere around $3000 US and up depending on size etc. > Since we are small, we probably do not need a 400GB space, but 120/240 > would probably do well for us. What tape loaders are you using and how > do you like them. I have looked at doing other methods of backing up > (rsync) and we may still pursue that, but we need something that we can > take offsite in case of disaster etc.
Don't take this as a preferred alternative over true backups, but I thought I'd mention it as another option for you to consider, given your financial constraints. Have you considered creating your own home-made SAN? A hefty backup system could be designed out of a quality (but inexpensive) PC server running Linux, LVM, and a RAID array. This allows you to scale vertically with a minimum of fuss and dollars. Because it's built on commodity hardware, you don't have as much a concern regarding the life-of-cycle as you do with proprietary tape drives. Need to go onsite? Restore the data onto a CD-R or onto that old tape system of yours and you're set. Using Amanda or tar/rsync/etc, you've got a quality, proven open-source backup system. I imagine you could piece a decent system together with a half-terabyte of storage for $500-700. -- Jason Dixon, RHCE DixonGroup Consulting http://www.dixongroup.net -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
