SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
This is probably one of those topics that gets regurgitated periodically, but it's always good to get some fresh answers.
The small consultancy business I work for wants to set up a new file server with remote backup. In the past we have used a Windows XP file server and plugged in a couple of external USB drives when space runs out. Backups were performed nightly to a USB drive and taken offsite to a trusted employees home.
They are looking to Linux for a new file server (I think more because they found out how much a new Windows file server would be).
I'm not a server guy but I have set up a simple Debian-based web server at work for a specific intranet application, but when I was asked about ideas for the new system the best I could come up with was maybe ssh+rsync (which I have only recently started using myself so I'm no expert by any means). Using Amazon's cloud service has been suggested, as well as the remote being a dedicated machine at a trusted employee's home (probably with a new dedicated line in) or with our local ISP (if they can offer such a service). A new dedicated line out of the office has also been suggested, I think mainly because daily file changes can potentially be quite large (3D CAD models etc). A possible advantage of the remote being nearby is that the initial backup could be using a portable hard drive instead of having to uploading terabytes of data (I guess there is always courier services though).
Anyway, just thought I'd chuck it out there. A lot of you guys probably already set up and/or look after remote backup systems. Even if anyone just has some ideas regarding potential traps/pitfalls would be handy. The company is fairly small (about 20-odd employees) so I don't think they need anything overly elaborate, but all feedback is appreciated.
(Score: 1) by wantkitteh on Friday July 11 2014, @08:47AM
Sounds good to me - my suggestion is FreeNAS on two identical boxes physically located as far from each other as practically possible on-site, synced every 15 minutes or so using ZFS snapshots for manual failover, coupled with a nightly incremental backup to tape/offsite repo/punch card/whatever with two or more sets recycled on a rolling monthly basis. FreeNAS is a good forward thinking business choice as well - it scales well, speaks almost every network file access protocol you could wish for (including iSCSI), integrates with AD/OD/LDAP, and doesn't mind running as a virtual machine, just as long as you aren't a spanner about it. This article [freenas.org] has an off-putting title, but read through it and you'll get briefed on all the noob VM setup mistakes that can ruin FreeNAS's performance and ZFS's reliability, along with all the solutions.