On Jan 17, 2012, at 4:00 PM, "Hugh E Cruickshank" <hugh@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: Les Mikesell Sent: January 17, 2012 05:56
>>
>> Big disks are cheap these days - I wouldn't worry that much about the
>> total space that much and you'll still be able to keep a lot online.
>
> This is true for current hardware however I am attempting to reuse our
> existing hardware that has been pulled from our production systems. It
> tends to be older technology but still usable. In this case, it is a
> set of disk arrays using SCSI3 drives.
>
>> The db's are probably best handled in a pre-backup script that
>> dumps/compresses them, then excluding the live files - and then even
>> block de-dup won't help. Pst's are a problem any way you look at
>> them but more because of Outlook's locking than their size. Backuppc
>> is packaged in EPEL so it's easy to install and shows the compression
>> and file re-use stats so you'll know in a few runs how it will handle
>> your data.
>
> While all of this is true I was kind of hoping that I could come up
> with something that was more "plug and play". The LessFS looked
> promising. I will continue to check this concept out further (be it
> LessFS, ZFS, or something else) but I am going to be avoiding the bleeding
> edge and can only afford to spend a limited amount of time
> chasing this down before I have to bite the bullet and go with what
> we have.
>
> Thanks again of your feedback and to all the others who have responded.
> Everyone's comments have been greatly appreciated.
If this is only a 1-2 year temporary solution and the backups will be discarded once a permanent solution is obtained then I'm sure it will be OK.
If your thinking of building a long-term backup solution this way then your building your castles on a foundation of sand. As backup sets grow and hardware/software ages you may find yourself in a technological dead-end unable to migrate the data off and unable to continue going forward.
If it is such an essential thing as backups (it's backup data right not redundant systems?) then I suggest telling the client to open their wallet cause when the shit hits the fan you either have solid backups or you have bankruptcy courts.
Buy a Data Domain, Exagrid or Falconstor backup storage appliance with builtin compression/de-duplication that is fully supported and has a viable upgrade path. Use a good centralized backup platform such as netbackup, networker, etc. The investment made in backup is an investment in the business' future.
-Ross
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