[Gllug] Viable back-up solutions for gigabytes?

Bernard Peek bap at shrdlu.com
Sat Sep 4 18:38:02 UTC 2004


In message <20040904165902.GA28412 at annexia.org>, Richard Jones 
<rich at annexia.org> writes
>
>I've got slightly out of touch with viable backup solutions in the
>past few years.  Last time I recommended such a thing, it involved
>DDS-2 tapes which are relatively low capacity nowadays I assume.
>
>Anyway, the problem is I've got several gigabytes of digital photos to
>back up, and a few gigabytes more of mail and other archives.  At the
>moment it's stored on 3 hard drives (RAID-1 pair + another machine
>which contains a backup), but if the house burns to the ground, that's
>not much use.
>
>I'd like some sort of viable backup system with at least a subset of
>these properties:
>
> * Removal media, so I can store off-site.
>
> * Large capacity (> 10 GB would be great).
>
> * Long-term, reliable storage (ie. the disks/tapes don't die when I
>   try to read them back a few years later).
>
> * Cheap (media and drive).

I need to know a bit more before I could recommend a solution.

How fast does your data change? How fast are you adding new data? Are 
there any big files that get modified often?

How compressible is the data?

If most of that 10Gb is static data then an incremental backup looks to 
be the best option. Take a snapshot of the static data like pictures 
then take regular backups of dynamic data like mail.

Writeable DVD looks to be the right medium. It's simple and cheap and if 
the place burns down it won't take long to get compatible hardware to 
read the data back again. One disk can hold 8Gb of data and if your 
daily dynamic data is less than that you can leave a machine to do an 
unattended backup overnight.



-- 
Bernard Peek
London, UK. DBA, Manager, Trainer & Author. Will work for money.

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