On Jan 17, 2012, at 4:00 PM, "Hugh E Cruickshank" hugh@forsoft.com 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