OT: Need Backup Advice

MUTTLEY wrote on 8/23/2010, 12:08 PM

I have Windows Home Server that I use to backup my entire system and it recently saved my butt when my desktops OS ran amuck. I was able to get a new Solid State drive as my new C: drive and restored everything perfectly (as far as I can tell) and with the new drive am running even better than before. Luckily it was only my C: drive that took a tank and my internal 2 TB's didn't require being restored.

Here's where I'm going with this. Windows Home Server has proven itself to be pretty handy but restoring over the network is slow, had I had to restore the 2 TB's instead of just the 70ish gigs that were on my C: drive it would have taken forever and a day, that said it's good to know it's there as a last resort. After this latest debacle I got a USB 3.0 card and a 2 TB 3.0 drive. With this if things go bad I can easily take the drive and pop it onto my laptop and continue working if I need to. I've used to use a program called Second Copy which I've always liked. It allows you to set the folder/drive that you want to backup and once everything is over you can set it to be on a schedule and to only update changed files. After this latest issue I got it up and running to backup my 2 tb's to the external 2 tb's and the issue is it's agonizingly slow. From my limited experience with 3.0 way slower than if I copied em manually, literally been going about 2 days now and and has only managed to copy 250 gigs of the 1.25 TB's it needs to copy. The bottleneck is clearly the software. Granted I could do the initial copy manually and then fire it up but it's not uncommon for me to add or delete 500-750 gigs at a time and if I have to go manual with big chunks it begins to defeat the purpose.

So that is my plight. Wondering if anyone is using anything else that does similar but hopefully more efficiently. This seems to be a good way to do things if I can just find a faster solution.

- Ray
Underground Planet

Comments

jrazz wrote on 8/23/2010, 1:06 PM

I'm in the same boat Ray. I have Windows Home Server via HP and it is slow. I even called them about the connection time to the server. Given I have installed three of these and mine is the slowest by far! HP said that my connection time was within the limit of acceptability. I like there tech support as I can understand them and they don't use a script- they simply address your question. But I think this guy just didn't want to say something was wrong. Granted I can connect but after about a minute or so of waiting. While another install has the server at ~100ft away (around the max for cat5e) and it connects within about 10 seconds or less every time.

So, with that being said, I would hate to have to restore from it.

I use a company called [linke=http://www.datablanket.com]datablanket[/link]- by far the cheapest backup software I found for our needs, but it is not made for large files (as no online backup is that I am aware of as that is where the cost is).

A mirrored RAID seems to be the way to go. if you lose one disc then you still have the other. However, if you get hit by lighting and lose your system due to the spike, you are still out of luck as RAID is strictly onsite.

I didn't mean to hijack the thread, but I would be interested in what others do to this end as well.

j razz

ritsmer wrote on 8/23/2010, 1:17 PM

I'm using the GFI backup program to do all backups here. It has a satisfying speed.

1 backup every afternoon to an internal 2 TB drive.
1 backup every evening to an external net-drive (D-Link 323)
1 backup every night to an external net-drive (Maxtor) at the other end of the house (for fire)

"Backup" means all clips, stills, proxies, music, other material, .veg's etc.

1 backup after every bigger shooting (some 500-1000 clips) as abobe plus to Samsung USB 2½ inch HDD's (500 or 640 GB) (kept in the safe and/or in our bank)

The internal backups are for very fast restore in case of disk malfunction - the other backups are intended in case of burglary and fire. The ones at our bank are for even worse cases.

DavidMcKnight wrote on 8/23/2010, 1:38 PM

J mentioned raids...I don't yet have a fully formulated opinion about raid for our business and likewise do not have a workable solution to this same problem other than lots of drives. Lots and lots of drives. My current thought is that even if you use a raid for your main storage you still need a backup, maybe both on and off site. I think raid 5 or raid 10 is what's advisable if you use one on your editing system.

We (my company) are in the infancy of tapeless workflow. Christie is paranoid to no end about losing data from cards that are now formatted for a new project - where before we kept every tape we shot. That's where it begins for us and we currently save data from cards to two different drives. While one drive is used for editing and renders, the other one gets it all backed up to (veg files at least and anything else that can't be easily reproduced).

What we almost never backup is programs or OS on the C drive. For whatever that's worth. I know we should using something like Acronis which I own, but have never really used.

To better answer Ray's Q about incremental backups, if I ever get to that point I would write a DOS batch file to copy only the files and folders that had changed between the two. I would also keep it within the same PC, ext USB is OK, and not go over the network. And probably kick it off as needed but also have it scheduled to run in the middle of the night. But I don't have any experience with Win Home Server.

TeetimeNC wrote on 8/23/2010, 3:08 PM

Ray, I too use WHS to backup my video stuff. I also do a weekly image backup of my C: drive. So far I have had to restore the C: drive once and have had to do a few partial restores of my video drives. I haven't had to do a full 1TB restore so I can't estimate how long that would take. But the partials were fast. I am running gigabit ethernet - are you?

/jerry

MUTTLEY wrote on 8/23/2010, 3:25 PM

So I canceled Second Copy and am copying over the internal to the external through USB 3.0 and looks like it'll take about 4 hours total, much better than the days Second Copy was taking. Don't know why Second Copy would take so long especially since the external was fresh.

Not running gigabit ethernet here, would have to do a couple more upgrades for that but again, the reason for backing up to the external hard drive is not just to protect the data but more for the ability to grab the external and continue working on my laptop should something go wrong with the desktop. Make sense? For example if I had a hardware issue that I couldn't get fixed right away on the desktop I wouldn't be dead in the water, just grab the drive and plug it into the laptop and it's business as usual. Okay, not exactly, much prefer working on my desktop but if I had to at least I could.

- Ray
Underground Planet

bsuratt wrote on 8/23/2010, 4:04 PM

Gigabit is significantly faster... running nightly it's no problem for me using a HP Mediasmart. My current work files are on a RAID5 consisting of 3 750 drives in thr desktop. This is backed up to WHS automatically each night. (After the first backup it only backs up what has changed, (delta configuration)... much faster.)

If the main computer craps out you can restore the backup locally to space on the WHS and edit directly over the gigabit network from the laptop.

Earl_J wrote on 8/23/2010, 5:31 PM

Hey Ray,
here is a solution we find that works well for our office.
It is a back-up server. Everything we do on our main server is completely duplicated on the back-up server which is also our fail-over server. If the main server fails for any reason, our back-up server steps in to handle the load from the office.
Above and beyond this fail-over, the back-up server also backs up its collected duplicated files and folders from the main server. This back-up server can run its back-up at any time since it has no bearing on the load or handling of functions on the main server. The back-ups are stored on a series of removable hard drives that can be stored off-site and rotated as required (just like tapes). We have a gigabit switch which makes things a bit faster than USB 3.0 ... (grin)

Of course, I can't think of the name of that device at the moment ... (sigh) ... I'll have it tomorrow.
We expect that once in full operation, we can do daily full back-ups without any concern about the time of day... we just transfer files and data to the back-up server every night. The transfer of files from the main server to the back-up server is only of the files and data that has changed - so the moving of the data is quick each day - and the back-up server has all day to make the back-up ...

For your purpose, it doesn't have to be a full-blown server - just another inexpensive computer where you duplicate all your files and projects that backs-up your data and software at its leisure without interrupting the normal workflow during the day. And you can link it all through an inexpensive gigabit network device (router or switch) ... If restoration times are critical, I would recommend differential back-ups ... then for the restoration, you load the last full back-up and the last differential ... with the incremental, you'll need to load the last full back up and then each succeeding incremental in order...
I think you know that - please forgive me if you're insulted... I don't mean to; I just want to help you speed up your restores. . . not that you'll have to do it often - I'd cross my fingers for you, except I can't type that way... (grin)

Gee whiz, I wish I could remember the name of the device ... did I mention I don't remember being this forgetful when I was younger. . . (lol)

UPDATE: It is an IdealSTOR device called the FrankeNAS ... take a peek; if you like.
Upon further review, I've gone completely off the topic of the original request by Ray... apologies all ... and ...errr ... ahhh ...

Until that time ... Earl J.

TeetimeNC wrote on 8/24/2010, 6:39 AM

>Not running gigabit ethernet here, would have to do a couple more upgrades for that but again, the reason for backing up to the external hard drive is not just to protect the data but more for the ability to grab the external and continue working on my laptop should something go wrong with the desktop. Make sense? For example if I had a hardware issue that I couldn't get fixed right away on the desktop I wouldn't be dead in the water, just grab the drive and plug it into the laptop and it's business as usual. Okay, not exactly, much prefer working on my desktop but if I had to at least I could.

Ray, sounds like your external drive is working well for you. On my gigabit ethernet I archive finished projects to a share folder on the WHS. Occasionally I want to re-render one of these archived projects. I am able to load the project into Vegas on either my video PC or my notebook from the share and render without problem. IOW, I do not first copy the files back to my Vegas PC, but instead use the veg and media in place on the WHS.

My WHS PC is a very long-in-the-tooth Pentium 4, 3Ghz. My video PC was already gigabit. I bought a gigabit switch, and a gigabit card for the Pentium - I don't recall the exact price but probably around $100 for the two.

/jerry