– Nandan Arora, CTO at Idealstor (www.idealstor.com), says:
When implementing removable disk backup to replace a legacy tape backup system the best advice we have is to not over complicate things. Remember, removable disk backup is in essence the same as backing up to tape. You are just using larger, faster and more reliable backup media. If you use a GFS rotation with tape, you can do the same with disk. If you use Backup Exec with tape, you can use it with disk.
Thoroughly define the goals of your project. If your goal is to replace tape, then make that the focus. A lot of people contact us looking to replace their tape backup but end up talking about de-dup, bare metal restore and replication. These are all things that have to do with your backup software package and not removable disk media itself. Start with the basics of replacing tape with removable disk backup and then you can focus on the finer points of what you want the disk to do. More often than not, these things are possible but it helps to clearly identify what your project goals are so the project doesn’t seem too complex.
When considering alternatives to tape based backup, cloud backup and replication have become popular options for SMB’s. While replication offers a great way to save on initial hardware costs and can be a good fit for very small businesses make sure you find out exactly what the monthly costs will be initially and as you add more data. In addition, find out what recovery times will be for a simple file restore or a full server restore. Finally, make sure you have enough bandwidth to handle the amount of data you’re backing up. More often than not cloud backup requires a larger link, redundant links and load balancing equipment to handle the job. These costs are often overlooked when deciding to switch from tape to cloud backup and end up eating up a large chunk an SMB’s IT budget.
