On Jan 17, 2012, at 4:00 PM, "Hugh E Cruickshank" <h...@forsoft.com> wrote:
> From: Les Mikesell Sent: January 17, 2012 05:56 >> >> Big disks are cheap these days - I wouldn't worry that much about the >> total space that much and you'll still be able to keep a lot online. > > This is true for current hardware however I am attempting to reuse our > existing hardware that has been pulled from our production systems. It > tends to be older technology but still usable. In this case, it is a > set of disk arrays using SCSI3 drives. > >> The db's are probably best handled in a pre-backup script that >> dumps/compresses them, then excluding the live files - and then even >> block de-dup won't help. Pst's are a problem any way you look at >> them but more because of Outlook's locking than their size. Backuppc >> is packaged in EPEL so it's easy to install and shows the compression >> and file re-use stats so you'll know in a few runs how it will handle >> your data. > > While all of this is true I was kind of hoping that I could come up > with something that was more "plug and play". The LessFS looked > promising. I will continue to check this concept out further (be it > LessFS, ZFS, or something else) but I am going to be avoiding the bleeding > edge and can only afford to spend a limited amount of time > chasing this down before I have to bite the bullet and go with what > we have. > > Thanks again of your feedback and to all the others who have responded. > Everyone's comments have been greatly appreciated. If this is only a 1-2 year temporary solution and the backups will be discarded once a permanent solution is obtained then I'm sure it will be OK. If your thinking of building a long-term backup solution this way then your building your castles on a foundation of sand. As backup sets grow and hardware/software ages you may find yourself in a technological dead-end unable to migrate the data off and unable to continue going forward. If it is such an essential thing as backups (it's backup data right not redundant systems?) then I suggest telling the client to open their wallet cause when the shit hits the fan you either have solid backups or you have bankruptcy courts. Buy a Data Domain, Exagrid or Falconstor backup storage appliance with builtin compression/de-duplication that is fully supported and has a viable upgrade path. Use a good centralized backup platform such as netbackup, networker, etc. The investment made in backup is an investment in the business' future. -Ross _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
