BD Drive for Backup?

[jerry1234]

Hello,

Putting together my new server, I am thinking about backup. At first I was thinking DVD drive - but my business data is big enough so I'd have to do multiple volumes - yuck.

Scanning Newegg, I see that Blu-Ray burner drives have descended from the stratosphere to price levels that ordinary mortals can afford - and the disks
themselves are less than a dollar apiece in 25-disk spools. I could back up
all my business data on one disk. Sweet.

Anybody tried using Blu-Ray disks for backup? Do they actually work? Reliably?

- Jerry1234

 

[bertie40]

Hello
Anybody tried using Blu-Ray disks for backup? Do they actually work? Reliably?

- Jerry1234

I don't trust optical disks for sole backup. I suggest you do what I did, and simply build a cheap backup server. only fire it up for backups.

I found BD disks take too long to burn, and are thus prone to any glitches during processing.

Thinking about it, I haven't burnt a BD disk in several years....

 

[pc-rebuilders]

Try This, works very well... http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/index.htm

 

[jerry1234]

I don't trust optical disks for sole backup. I suggest you do what I did, and simply build a cheap backup server. only fire it up for backups.

*** I do have a DNS323 running fonz fun_plug. It does NFS and has a 1.5tb drive.

I'm interested in substantial optical storage for offsite backups. I wrote a script that tar's up a directory hierarchy. Then it gzips the tar file. Then it encrypts the gzipped file. Then splits the encrypted file into disk-sized chunks, and burns them onto the media of the day. The resulting backup can be thrown in the trunk of a car or left at a friend's house. Since it's encrypted, a thief would just get a free frisbee.

This worked well back when my business data was 2 or 3 gigabytes. Now it's 16, and it would be way too many CDs.

I did buy a BD burner drive. It also burns the Milleniata disks, which are claimed to last for a thousand years.

- Jerry

 

[DCGPX]

I'd have to agree about not relying on optical any more, but with drives as cheap as they are per GB why go optical in the first place? Either have a dedicated HDD if you must with multiple backups set up or set up a cloud backup.

If you can get all your data on a BRay then I'd just as sooner go for a drive myself.

I've just set up server 2008 for myself to migrate all my data onto and have put a second drive in and am just using the built in backup service on a scheduled task every other day to back it all up to itself It does what I need for now so you'd have to ascertain what your exact needs are first

 

[jerry1234]

I'd have to agree about not relying on optical any more, but with drives as cheap as they are per GB why go optical in the first place? Either have a dedicated HDD if you must with multiple backups set up or set up a cloud backup.

*** I do use a dedicated HD. But what if the house burns down or it gets stolen?

WRT the cloud - to trust it, I would have to save encrypted files. Otherwise,
the provider could be hacked & get my data, or be forced by a court order to give up my data, or a man-in-the-middle attack could get my data. With encrypted filesystems, no incremental backup is possible. Also, with large filesystems, the upchuck time becomes an issue.

- Jerry

 

[SAG]

*** I do have a DNS323 running fonz fun_plug. It does NFS and has a 1.5tb drive.

I'm interested in substantial optical storage for offsite backups. I wrote a script that tar's up a directory hierarchy. Then it gzips the tar file. Then it encrypts the gzipped file. Then splits the encrypted file into disk-sized chunks, and burns them onto the media of the day. The resulting backup can be thrown in the trunk of a car or left at a friend's house. Since it's encrypted, a thief would just get a free frisbee.

This worked well back when my business data was 2 or 3 gigabytes. Now it's 16, and it would be way too many CDs.

I did buy a BD burner drive. It also burns the Milleniata disks, which are claimed to last for a thousand years.

- Jerry

Have you considered an RDX?
With a hacked DNS323 you should be bale to get one connected to it via the USB port.
Or just connect it to a regular computer.

Those RDX drives are all-but bullet proof. I've left them in my car for weeks at a time before and they are still kicking.

 

[jerry1234]

Wow, that's a nice technology. Cheap 2.5" disk shock mounted in a slide-in box. Plug it in, it's just a disk drive, do whatever you want. A little pricy.

- Jerry

 

[SAG]

Wow, that's a nice technology. Cheap 2.5" disk shock mounted in a slide-in box. Plug it in, it's just a disk drive, do whatever you want. A little pricy.

- Jerry

I snagged a new HP RDX with 2 320GB drives on Amazon for under $300 once.

 

[NYJimbo]

I do backups to another hard drive and then if I want to add redundancy, I download the backup to another machine either here or out on the net. Usually these are full backups or folder/data/application specific, never incremental. In my experience when you rely on a backup and then an incremental you increase you chance of failure for a restore. I know in some cases you have to go with incremental because of data/volume size, but thats just the way I do things.

All of my servers around the country back up to a backup hard drive, on some we have TWO backup hard drives which are used alternately. Once a week one copy of those backups are downloaded to another server. Once a month they are downloaded to a server here on Long Island.

Even my personal machine I am working on right now does Acronis backups to a dedicated backup hard drive and once a month one backups is copied to an external hard drive. Retention is usually 4 backup versions.

This may sound like Backups 101, but I will say it anyway:

Its really very important to be sure of what you are backing up, that is to verify that the backups contain what you expect them to, how you get to any offline or redundancy in an emergency but most of all, how to restore from whatever method you use.

I have been in this game a long time and have seen tons of servers go down and people try to restore backups and realize they cant get to their backups or really do not understand how to restore or that the restore didnt have what they thought it did.

Nothing worse than worthless backups.​

Well, thats enough from me....

 

[SAG]

[..]
or really do not understand how to restore or that the restore didnt have what they thought it did.

If I had a quarter for each time I've seen this happen!

Nothing worse than worthless backups.

I could not agree more.

 

[HankArnold]

Have you considered an RDX?
With a hacked DNS323 you should be bale to get one connected to it via the USB port.
Or just connect it to a regular computer.

Those RDX drives are all-but bullet proof. I've left them in my car for weeks at a time before and they are still kicking.

We've used them at the Hospice I support and they are great. As mentioned, a bit pricey, but very sturdy and easy to use. Nice part is that they are "just another external drive". Gives you all the backup options you want with or with out special software.

Hank Arnold (MVP)

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

off site backup

One client uses 3ea $59 external usb drives on a simple server setup....We rotate one drive off site every other day to the owners home 40 miles away so it is convenient.

The third one goes with me about 50 miles away in another direction. I do one backup once a month and I do a test restore with every backup as part of my monthly service so that I know that what I have will restore.

In about 5000 clients I have never met anyone who has performed a test restore. I do it religiously. I attempt to teach the client to do it but often they just ask me to come out on some schedule and do it for them. Its like insurance to them against their stupid employees or selves.

We do this with most of the networks we manage.