Tape Backup

dps

Do you guys know any good and reliable Tape Backup programs/software for servers?
We are currently using Veritas Backup Exec 8.6 on our Windows 2000 server and will soon migrate to an SBS 2003 server.

Any suggestions?

Oh, and btw.. TGIF!!!
Probably most of you are enjoying their weekend now.
Still stuck here in the office.

taktsoi

We are currently using Veritas Backup Exec 8.6 on our Windows 2000 server and will soon migrate to an SBS 2003 server.

If you are familiar with the Vertias Backup Exec, I would suggest using the latest version Backup Exec from Symantec, which is Symantec Backup Exec 11d. The latest version supports SBS 2003.

For more info, check the site below.
http://www.symantec.com/business/products/overview.jsp?pcid=2244&pvid=57_1

RTmarc

I definitely agree with at least upgrading to the latest version of Backup Exec. Version 8 is at least 4 years old.

Plantwiz

RTmarc wrote:

I definitely agree with at least upgrading to the latest version of Backup Exec. Version 8 is at least 4 years old.

Ditto.


You may want to consider Acronis True Image for Servers, but Veritas (aka Symantec) Backup Exec 11d should be what you are looking for.

Just curious, why so long without an upgrade?

RussS

Personally, if I had the choice between backup exec and the built in NT backup with SBS I would go with the built in backup - cheaper and it works better.

For a really good backup solution I would go with ARCserve

dps

Yeah. Was thinking about the latest Backup Exec too.

Just curious, why so long without an upgrade?

Actually, I don't know.
Just started working for my company 6 months ago and now we're upgrading everything.
It'll be one hell of a week next week.

Personally, if I had the choice between backup exec and the built in NT backup with SBS I would go with the built in backup - cheaper and it works better.

For a really good backup solution I would go with ARCserve

Thanks. I'll look into ARCserve and the built in NT backup with SBS. We were using NT backup in my job in the Philippines and we didn't have problems with it. *And* it's definitely cheaper.

snadam

we Use EMC's retrospect tape backup software. EMC had a screaming deal on the packaging/licensing so we took advantage of it. Works great, but not as, whats the word, "liberal" as other tape back up software.

Plantwiz

dps wrote:

Yeah. Was thinking about the latest Backup Exec too.

Just curious, why so long without an upgrade?

Actually, I don't know.
Just started working for my company 6 months ago and now we're upgrading everything.
It'll be one hell of a week next week.

Aww...ewww...ouch...um.. I mean that sounds 'great'! Upgrading many systems at once is always a snap :P

LukeQuake

We have recently upgraded to Veritas 11d - It's a nice product even if when verifying the backups it reboots your servers! (This is now sorted, I must add!)

dps

Anyone of you using a USB HardDrive media as backup?
Is this stable enough?
Any thoughts?

dynamik

I use two external 500GB USB HDs in my backup strategy. I schedule a full backup to the drive every Friday and daily differential backups to 20gb tapes. I keep one drive at home and alternate which drive I backup to every week.

We're a relatively small company with lots of data (we do large-format printing, so we frequently deal with large graphics files), and any other tape solution was just too expensive or cumbersome for our needs.

Plantwiz

dps wrote:

Anyone of you using a USB HardDrive media as backup?
Is this stable enough?
Any thoughts?

How about a Drobo?

www.drobo.com

They are pretty neat!

dps

I use two external 500GB USB HDs in my backup strategy. I schedule a full backup to the drive every Friday and daily differential backups to 20gb tapes. I keep one drive at home and alternate which drive I backup to every week.

Did you install any software for this? How did you go around the scheduled backups?
Or did you just copy or move files?
Thanks.

dynamik

dps wrote:

Did you install any software for this? How did you go around the scheduled backups?
Or did you just copy or move files?
Thanks.

I didn't have to install any additional software. I'm just using the basic ntbackup utility (start > run > ntbackup or in the accessories menu). You can schedule the time, type of backup, directories, drives, etc. It doesn't have the bells and whistles of the expensive software packages, but it meets our needs.

Plantwiz wrote:

How about a Drobo?

www.drobo.com

They are pretty neat!

I've never used one personally. With external drives up to a TB (single drive), I don't really have a need for one, but they certainly look neat.

Plantwiz

dynamik wrote:

dps wrote:

Plantwiz wrote:

How about a Drobo?

www.drobo.com

They are pretty neat!

I've never used one personally. With external drives up to a TB (single drive), I don't really have a need for one, but they certainly look neat.

You can use any size of drive up to 1TB total.

Swap in and out at will. It's VERY cool and if you have several SATA drives kicking around you can now drop them into one place and store your data very easily. If a drive (or when) a SATA drive fails...your data is safe across the other drives and when you replace the drive the data populates the new drive.

We typically go with 2 x 250GB, but have a client using 3 drives. Smaller company using it as a secondary backup to their tapes. Saved them once already.

dps

dynamik wrote:

I didn't have to install any additional software. I'm just using the basic ntbackup utility (start > run > ntbackup or in the accessories menu). You can schedule the time, type of backup, directories, drives, etc. It doesn't have the bells and whistles of the expensive software packages, but it meets our needs.

Is there a way/solution for NTBackup to give a confirmation if the backup ran successfully.

dynamik

dps wrote:

dynamik wrote:

I didn't have to install any additional software. I'm just using the basic ntbackup utility (start > run > ntbackup or in the accessories menu). You can schedule the time, type of backup, directories, drives, etc. It doesn't have the bells and whistles of the expensive software packages, but it meets our needs.

Is there a way/solution for NTBackup to give a confirmation if the backup ran successfully.

Just select report from the tools menu.

Illusionking

I've been using BackupExec for a while and have had very little issues on restores. We're running a 4 lto-3 drive HP library, a quantum lto-3 7 tape library, and a single lto-3 quantum unit.

It's nice to be able to run 4 concurrent backup to tape jobs on 1 server. We're running full backups on about 32+ servers and it all runs within an 8 hour window.

dynamik

Illusionking wrote:

I've been using BackupExec for a while and have had very little issues on restores. We're running a 4 lto-3 drive HP library, a quantum lto-3 7 tape library, and a single lto-3 quantum unit.

It's nice to be able to run 4 concurrent backup to tape jobs on 1 server. We're running full backups on about 32+ servers and it all runs within an 8 hour window.

How much data are you backing up? How do you have everything connected?