Hello all. I have 15 or so CentOS servers (now v4.4, I will upgrade them all to 5 when it comes out) and a few windows machines. I am looking to implement a network backup solution using Amanda. I will be backing up 200 gig or so to start, but that will grow. Does anyone have any recommendations on tape drives that will work "out of the box" with CentOS? Thanks, Joe
On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 at 10:48am, Mailing Lists wrote> I have 15 or so CentOS servers (now v4.4, I will upgrade them all to 5 when > it comes out) and a few windows machines. I am looking to implement a > network backup solution using Amanda. > > I will be backing up 200 gig or so to start, but that will grow. > > Does anyone have any recommendations on tape drives that will work "out of > the box" with CentOS?Most all SCSI tape drives will work with a minimum of hassle -- what you go with depends mainly on budget and backup window. I currently use both AIT3 and LTO3, and like them quite a lot. LTO3 is probably overkill for you, but you may want to look at LTO or LTO2. -- Joshua Baker-LePain Department of Biomedical Engineering Duke University
Skip the tape route, install a network backup machine using a raid setup instead. It is quicker and cleaner.Also it can be done in either Windows, or Centos without any big tricks.. john plemons Mailing Lists wrote:> Hello all. > > I have 15 or so CentOS servers (now v4.4, I will upgrade them all to 5 > when it comes out) and a few windows machines. I am looking to > implement a network backup solution using Amanda. > > I will be backing up 200 gig or so to start, but that will grow. > > Does anyone have any recommendations on tape drives that will work > "out of the box" with CentOS? > > Thanks, > > Joe > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > >
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Tue, Mar 27, 2007 at 10:48:44AM -0400, Mailing Lists wrote:> Hello all. > > I have 15 or so CentOS servers (now v4.4, I will upgrade them all to > 5 when it comes out) and a few windows machines. I am looking to > implement a network backup solution using Amanda. > > I will be backing up 200 gig or so to start, but that will grow. > > Does anyone have any recommendations on tape drives that will work > "out of the box" with CentOS?Any and all SCSI tape drives will work out of the box on CentOS (or any Linux, for that matter). For your case, my recomendation is LTO-3 (300GB/600GB). Good space, fair price, good durability. - -- Rodrigo Barbosa "Quid quid Latine dictum sit, altum viditur" "Be excellent to each other ..." - Bill & Ted (Wyld Stallyns) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFGCTl6pdyWzQ5b5ckRApqMAJ9VqzVQIRdoZ7U1dE32NZyd+rH3PQCgpHJw zvIgiiTL7m8A5oh9Wz7ur5M=jDfN -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
I would suggest backing up to a local machine for speed and then vaulting that offsite to tape. The local machine will keep the speeds up and the window short, then vault that machine offsite to tape. If you have the budget use a VTL for the local machine and a tape library for the off-site. If you don't have the budget LTO3 is your safest, best route. I have a lot of experience in this area if you nee help, send me an email. God Bless, Aron -----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces at centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf Of Mailing Lists Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 7:49 AM To: CentOS mailing list Subject: [CentOS] Tape drive recommendations Hello all. I have 15 or so CentOS servers (now v4.4, I will upgrade them all to 5 when it comes out) and a few windows machines. I am looking to implement a network backup solution using Amanda. I will be backing up 200 gig or so to start, but that will grow. Does anyone have any recommendations on tape drives that will work "out of the box" with CentOS? Thanks, Joe _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS at centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
I've been using AIT for a while now and have had no problems with it. AIT-4 would suit you well with its 200GB native capacity. All SCSI drives should be supported well in CentOS.
Joe, I just wanted to share my 2 cents: When I was pricing tape backup solutions for a recent project, I chose LTO3 over LTO2 (or any of the other formats). The price difference between LTO2 and 3 was minimal, and double the native capacity (and speed) is hard to ignore. Aside from checking application support, I used price per gigabyte as the major determining factor. Gordon On 3/27/07, Mailing Lists <mlists at microreplay.com> wrote:> Hello all. > > I have 15 or so CentOS servers (now v4.4, I will upgrade them all to > 5 when it comes out) and a few windows machines. I am looking to > implement a network backup solution using Amanda. > > I will be backing up 200 gig or so to start, but that will grow. > > Does anyone have any recommendations on tape drives that will work > "out of the box" with CentOS? > > Thanks, > > Joe > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >
Don Knott wrote:> LTO3 is the standard these days... LTO4 will be out midyear hopefully > and maybe LTO3 prices will come down. > > I use BRUServer for network backup. It provides similar services to > what your planning to use Amanda for. They maintain a good bit of > information at their websites about drives & scsi cards. I'm on an > older RHEL kernel which they don't support because of scsi problems > that require me to reboot it about 4:00am each day to keep the tape > drive in view or it disappears. Other than that, the setup works well > and LTO3 is fast. > > http://www.tolisgroup.com/ > http://www.linuxtapecert.org/ >Also don't use adaptec SCSI cards with LTO on CentOS3/4. Either the card or the Linux driver just causes hours of heartache. LSI was recommended to me from this list and solved the numerous problems we had while using adaptec/LTO. Dean
OK - Thanks for all the great advice! Based on what I have read, I think I will build a backup server with a big RAID array, back up to the array each night, and then copy the array off to tape during the day. To keep costs down, I think LTO-1 will work well with the RAID array. I don't mind running over to more than one tape per day. Can I ask which drives everyone likes? I found a Tandberg drive for the right price ($740 brand new). The drive is the Tandberg LTO1 220LTO (Tandberg part number 3120-01). Does anyone have experience with this drive? Are there other drives in this price range I should consider? Who are your favorite vendors for this type of product? Thanks again!
John R Pierce wrote:> Aron.Darling at Emulex.Com wrote: >> Loader are totally a love/hate relationship. They do make life a lot >> easier as they do the tape movements for you which can be a tedious >> thing at times. With a loader or library you can script the entire >> operation with tar, MTX and MT and let cron do all the work for you. >> Always look for the OEM rather than buying the name brand equipment, >> they are most always the same HW and FW with a different model >> number in it. > > > otoh, its hard to beat a 3 year warranty and on location support from > the same vendor as your server hardware, assuming your a brand name > shop in the first place.... hugely reduces finger pointing when > there's a complex issue to resolve. with OEM hardware bought on the > whitebox market, you're often faced with replace or self-repair > option at cost. >Having used a 20 tape library, and suffering through restores with AIT2 tapes taking 10-12 hours per tape, I gave up on them. I went with good old rsync, and built up a 4 TB system to handle backups. Once configured, it's nearly a 100% hands off solution. You can read about what I've done here: http://marks-tech-pages.blogspot.com Works great especially for TBs of data that needs to be backed up every day. HTH Mark Schoonover IS Manager American Geotechnical - California, Nevada and Arizona V-> 858.450.4040 F-> 714.685.3909 C-> 858.472.3816 "Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end." -- Stephen Hawking
Les Mikesell wrote:> Mark Schoonover wrote: >> John R Pierce wrote: >>> Aron.Darling at Emulex.Com wrote: >>>> Loader are totally a love/hate relationship. They do make life a >>>> lot easier as they do the tape movements for you which can be a >>>> tedious thing at times. With a loader or library you can script >>>> the entire operation with tar, MTX and MT and let cron do all the >>>> work for you. Always look for the OEM rather than buying the name >>>> brand equipment, they are most always the same HW and FW with a >>>> different model number in it. >>> >>> otoh, its hard to beat a 3 year warranty and on location support >>> from the same vendor as your server hardware, assuming your a brand >>> name shop in the first place.... hugely reduces finger pointing >>> when there's a complex issue to resolve. with OEM hardware bought >>> on the whitebox market, you're often faced with replace or >>> self-repair option at cost. >>> >> >> Having used a 20 tape library, and suffering through restores with >> AIT2 tapes taking 10-12 hours per tape, I gave up on them. I went >> with good old rsync, and built up a 4 TB system to handle backups. >> Once configured, it's nearly a 100% hands off solution. You can read >> about what I've done here: http://marks-tech-pages.blogspot.com >> Works great especially for TBs of data that needs to be backed up >> every day. > > If you want something that stores the backups much more efficiently > (with a price in processing to do it), look at backuppc: > http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/ > > It compresses everything and hardlinks all duplicates so you can keep > about 10x what you'd expect online, and it has a nice web interface > for browsing the backups and doing restores.Thanks Lee. I did look at backuppc before, and I didn't want anything that compresses files, or used a web interface. Using rsync, it's a matter of scp to restore, and that's it. I do use hardlinks to duplicate data, so my storage requirements are kept as small as possible. Just about any CentOS system can be configured to run backups in the manner I've written up, nothing extra to install or learn. So, like most things, it boils down to individual needs and expertise. I know for myself, tape backups just weren't working well at all. Thanks! Mark
Joshua Baker-LePain wrote:> On Wed, 28 Mar 2007 at 10:07pm, Mark Schoonover wrote > >> Having used a 20 tape library, and suffering through restores with >> AIT2 tapes taking 10-12 hours per tape, I gave up on them. I went >> with good old > > One of the lovely bits about LTO3 -- 400GB native, 80MB/s => restore a > whole tape in under 2 hours.Joshua, 200 gigs an hour is pretty good for a tape, but what happens if the tape you've backed up to is bad, or has a bad spot? You've lost your backup. 400GB in drives is a fraction of the cost of tapes these days. I do agree, my max throughput over a quiet gigbit network is going to be around half the speed of the LTO, I look at the fact that I'm only backing up the daily changes, not an entire server like you'd do to tape. With rsync doing compression over SSH, it looks like I'm backing up an entire 1.3TB system in 90 mins. Sure, you can do differental backups to try to keep your number of tapes to a minimum. Backing up straight to disk ends up being faster all around, plus it's on a RAID5 system so loosing a drive isn't all that big a deal. Going to disk is also fast enough, I can run hourly backups during business hours. Where LTO tapes will outrun is during a total server failure where I have to restore all data back to a server. Then my network becomes the bottleneck, but you still won't have to gamble spanning across multiple tapes to fit >400GB of data. My past problems have never been with backing up, it's been with restoring the data. Either too slow to restore, or since I needed 10 tapes to backup, I'd end up with one of them having a bad spot that would abort the restore. The only way to know for sure if your tapes are 100% is to try to do an entire restoration. Simply running a tape verify isn't enough. Cost is another factor. An Exabyte LTO3 1x7 loader is MSRP $6500, with 20 tapes $1130 in a pack. My 4TB backup server cost just under $5000 at the time, cheaper today. Then, you have the daily admin of flipping tapes. Disks run without intervention once configured, and it's nice to have especially if you have employees working over the weekends, or on holidays. These were just my requirements, and my thought processes that lead me away from tapes all together. YMMV, your specifics are probably different. Mark
Les Mikesell wrote:> Mark Schoonover wrote: >> Les Mikesell wrote: >>> Mark Schoonover wrote: >>>> John R Pierce wrote: >>>>> Aron.Darling at Emulex.Com wrote: >>>>>> Loader are totally a love/hate relationship. They do make life a >>>>>> lot easier as they do the tape movements for you which can be a >>>>>> tedious thing at times. With a loader or library you can script >>>>>> the entire operation with tar, MTX and MT and let cron do all the >>>>>> work for you. Always look for the OEM rather than buying the name >>>>>> brand equipment, they are most always the same HW and FW with a >>>>>> different model number in it. >>>>> otoh, its hard to beat a 3 year warranty and on location support >>>>> from the same vendor as your server hardware, assuming your a >>>>> brand name shop in the first place.... hugely reduces finger >>>>> pointing when there's a complex issue to resolve. with OEM >>>>> hardware bought on the whitebox market, you're often faced with >>>>> replace or self-repair option at cost. >>>>> >>>> Having used a 20 tape library, and suffering through restores with >>>> AIT2 tapes taking 10-12 hours per tape, I gave up on them. I went >>>> with good old rsync, and built up a 4 TB system to handle backups. >>>> Once configured, it's nearly a 100% hands off solution. You can >>>> read about what I've done here: >>>> http://marks-tech-pages.blogspot.com Works great especially for >>>> TBs of data that needs to be backed up every day. >>> If you want something that stores the backups much more efficiently >>> (with a price in processing to do it), look at backuppc: >>> http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/ >>> >>> It compresses everything and hardlinks all duplicates so you can >>> keep about 10x what you'd expect online, and it has a nice web >>> interface for browsing the backups and doing restores. >> >> Thanks Lee. I did look at backuppc before, and I didn't want >> anything that compresses files, or used a web interface. Using >> rsync, it's a matter of scp to restore, and that's it. I do use >> hardlinks to duplicate data, so my storage requirements are kept as >> small as possible. Just about any CentOS system can be configured to >> run backups in the manner I've written up, nothing extra to install >> or learn. So, like most things, it boils down to individual needs >> and expertise. I know for myself, tape backups just weren't working >> well at all. >> > > Backuppc can be configured to not compress, although I think the > filenames are still somewhat mangled and don't have their real > attributes so you can't access them directly. The web interface is > also optional and there are command line tools for everything you > need. It is handy to be able to download a single file or tar/zip > archive directly through a browser, though - and in the latest > version you can edit the configuration through the web interface.I've thought about adding a web restore so users can restore their own files to their own home directories. Most of my problems come from my graphics dept, where it's not uncommon for them to 'accidently' delete 500GB of data. It would be nice to offload those kinds of requests to the users, but only to a point, and on an employee by employee basis. Mark
John R Pierce wrote:> Mark Schoonover wrote: >> Cost is another factor. An Exabyte LTO3 1x7 loader is MSRP $6500, >> with 20 tapes $1130 in a pack. My 4TB backup server cost just under >> $5000 at the time, cheaper today. Then, you have the daily admin of >> flipping tapes. Disks run without intervention once configured, and >> it's nice to have especially if you have employees working over the >> weekends, or on holidays. >> > > > HP's version of that same LTO3 1/8 autoloader is around $5000 street > price (sometimes under $4500). The Quantum OEM version > ("Superloader") is about the same. > > of course, 20 LTO3 tapes is 16 terabytes. and you can have another > 16 terabytes in archive for another $1100 or whatever. That 1/8 > autoloader holds 8 of them, which is 6.4 terabytes online with no > operator intervention required until it comes time to ship a box of > tapes to the offsite vault. >Assuming 2:1 compression will you get 16TB, but with my data, 1.3:1 is more realistic. Now that you mention it, a similar disk backup system is located 100 miles away in a colo site. Every night I do offsite backups, automatically. No shipping tapes, or other user intervention. Tape backups require user intervention everyday. There's no way around it, especially if you're testing your backups for reliability. Mark
Joshua Baker-LePain wrote:> On Wed, 28 Mar 2007 at 11:54pm, Mark Schoonover wrote > > I really didn't mean for this to turn into a tape vs. disk based > backups debate -- everyone has their own needs and ways of meeting > them. But I have to disagree with the following: > >> Tape backups require user intervention everyday. There's no way >> around it, especially if you're testing your backups for reliability. > > No, they don't. With a library, you only need to change tapes when > you're out of slots (if then, depending on your library, dataset > size, retention needs, etc). And any decent backup software should > have some sort of verification built in or easily scripted.If you rely solely on your tape software verification to tell you your tapes are 100%, there will come a day, you'll be in for a surprise. The only 100% sure fire way to determine if your tapes are good is to actually restore from them back to a drive, and open them with the applications that created those files. Only after that kind of testing, can you be sure your tapes are good. I've had many tapes verified from the days of Arcserve, through Brightstor, Arkeia, CTAR and BRU. All of these backup software systems ran, and verified flawlessly, then a disaster struck only to find out my verified tapes actually had problems with them. Now, the $64K is, how many files do you need to test?? :) Thanks! Mark Schoonover *** Winner of the 2008 Best Psychic Award IS Manager American Geotechnical - California, Nevada and Arizona V-> 858.450.4040 F-> 714.685.3909 C-> 858.472.3816
Thanks to everyone! This was a great discussion. So here is how things ended up: On the hardware side, I can get a Exabyte (Tandberg Data) 3120, HH - LTO1 drive (100/200 GB), an Adaptec 29320LPE Ultra 360 SCSI card and a 68 bin VHD internal cable with terminators for under $1000, all brand new. Based on the extensive RAID thread we just had, I bought a 3ware 9650SE card and 4 WD3200JS 320GB drives for another project. Total cost for the card (4 port, low profile) was $930. I just installed everything and it worked the first time. 3ware is great! I am going to build a backup server around another 9650SE RAID array (probably 8 drives X 320 GB) and the Exabyte LTO drive. I estimate the total cost will be under $4K for everything. Finally, based on all the money I saved, I made a donation to CentOS! Thanks again! -Joe