[ILUG] Backup Solutions for Low performance devices

[Walter Faleiro]

Gavin,
we tried to run Metiix at reduced CPU usage because the NFS server from
where it was backed up slowed down. also metiix advised us to mount the data
at different locations and back it up. we do not have 21TB/2=11 machines to
run the agents from to get a successful backup. The array is not a netapp or
a emc, but a low end array.
However at an alternate location I tried to backup 500GB of data from  a NS
120 EMC filer on a backup server that had metiix runnign.The backup server
was 8GB memory and dual quad core cpu's. It took the backup almost 10 days.
I understand for any software to claim it can backup this amount of data
will not mean it will work out for our case hence we are open to trials.

Thanks,
--Walter

On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 8:48 PM, Gavin McCullagh <gmccullagh at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, 24 May 2010, Walter Faleiro wrote:
>
> > Need some suggestions on backing up a low performance array to an
> alternate
> > disk.
> > we have around 10TB (8TB usable) FC array connected to a CentOS  system.
> We
> > tried unsuccessfully with a software called Metiix but the volume of data
> is
> > just beyond the means of the software. Now that the data is already
> > populated on the system we need to have a backup via different means.
> Does
> > anyone have had success with amanda or bacula on such large amount of
> data
> > which is already populated?
>
> It's not completely clear what the problem is here.  Is it that Metiix
> couldn't deal with the volume of data or that the performance of the disk
> array is slow?
>
> Like Amanda, Bacula is definitely used with very large amounts of data like
> this.  If your array is too slow though, there's not that much the backup
> server can do to change that.
>
> That being said, incremental backups are probably what you want most of the
> time.  Bacula will do full (all files), differential (all changed files
> since last full backup) and incremental (all changed files since last
> backup) backups.  In general one needs to run a full backup at some fixed
> interval (eg every week, month, quarter, ...) in order that you can recycle
> the old volume.  If a full takes a very long time, you might want to look
> at the VirtualFull backup feature which will allow you to consolidate an
> old full and a series of Diffs/Incs into a new full backup.
>
> Gavin
>
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