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Ask Soylent: Suggestions for Remote Backup?

posted by janrinok on Friday July 11 2014, @01:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the picking-brains-time dept.

crutchy writes:

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.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by chewbacon on Friday July 11 2014, @05:56PM

    by chewbacon (1032) on Friday July 11 2014, @05:56PM (#67734)

    I have a Linux machine setup for home backup and I keep a lot of my per diem IT work backed up to it. I bought offsite storage. Not much, but enough for my irreplaceable data like pictures and software development work. At home, I have ZFS and I use TrueImage on my windows clients. Rsync works well enough for Linux clients. I also use subversion on the same server for software which is arguably another backup source. Smartmon is a life and time saver. You. Can use it with ZFS to email you about drives ending their life.

    One extremely important thing to remember about ZFS, RAID-z really, is do not use the entire drive space of any drive in the array. Partition them and pick a nice round number below the drive capacity. That away when you replace one, ZFS doesn't go apeshit and fail due to a different drive size. Hasn't been a problem I've ran into yet, but I've been warned about it.