File/Backup server question

AdamZx3 · Sep 25, 2007

Wondering if some of you with more data backup experience could look over my backup plan and see if anything needs changed.

I will be freelancing in graphic design and photo retouching after I graduate this dec. I will need a way to reliably backup and manage my files. I have an old pc which is a 3ghz,with 1gb ram,and about 300gb of disk space. I would like it to be a file server as well as have an FTP server so that people could send in files.

Setup I was thinking of implementing:

HD 1
Windows2000 os files, or possibly linux

HD 2
Partition 1 : 80gb File storage
Partition 2 : 80gb Backup (copy1)

HD 3
Partition 1: 80gb File storage
Partition 2: 80gb Backup (copy2)

Antivirus or at least AVG
Some sort of software firewall

Backups will be Aperture, My archive and projects folders, home folder and bookmarks; As well as an online backup via mozy or jungledisk

I have two disks, should I chance a cheap raid+1 card or just have backup send files to both drives?

Basically I just want to backup files, store old files there and setup a ftp to receive files. Backups will be from a from a powermac and macbook pro if that makes a difference. (will mount a network disk to transfer backups)

TCimages · Sep 25, 2007

I would seriously consider a 1TB NAS with RAID of your choice. It's a simple solution to provide redundancy.

With what you propose, I really only see one back up. I personally don't consider my working copy (if you will) a back-up. These files can accidentally be deleted or corrupted from everyday use. Sometimes you don't realize this until your back-up fails and you use your working copy to recover.

I would also consider a third copy offsite. This will keep you in business if someone robs you or you lose your data in a fire or power surge. Offsite allows you to have a drive stored that is not running everyday. So mechanical failures and power surges become less a worry.

I back up my files as they are. I don't care for backup programs that create proprietary files. You never know when the company may go out of business and you are unable to recover those 10 year old files.

One more thought... 80GBs sure doesn't seem like much storage for a 10mp camera, especially if shooting raw. Creating graphics can aslo generate huge files.

jstuedle · Sep 25, 2007

TC is correct, and a backup partition on the same drive can be rendered useless in the event of a drive failure. One thing for sure, every hard drive, flash card and CD/DVD WILL eventually fail to be read. All will fail, that you can take to the bank.

TCimages · Sep 25, 2007

jstuedle said:
TC is correct, and a backup partition on the same drive can be rendered useless in the event of a drive failure. One thing for sure, every hard drive, flash card and CD/DVD WILL eventually fail to be read. All will fail, that you can take to the bank.

I knew I forgot something. That was it. Thanks. I agree, Putting working files and back-up on the same physical drive is a no no.

AdamZx3 · Sep 25, 2007

Thanks guys, good food for thought

I knew I forgot something. That was it. Thanks. I agree, Putting working files and back-up on the same physical drive is a no no.

I wont be using the pc for any kind of work if thats what you mean, the other partition would just be used for storing a few things , like a few gigs of video footage I don't want on my mac....but now that I think of it, it would be better to just have one partition and have a folder for backup and store the video on that partition lol.

One question on the raid 0...say if my drive #1 fails, I can just plug drive #2 in with no probs...or does it need some sort of recovery software?

I will look into the 1TB NAS, but when I actually start making money I will probably go with an Apple Xserve with raid5.

So as it stands now heres my current plan,

Working on Powermac, then sending over to the pc to backup with the Apple application "Backup 3" , which does creates a package for each session that you can w/o software manually open the package and extract the whole file. (never thought about opening in 10 years!)

PC Setup
Drive #1 - OS Files
Drive #2 - 160gb Mirrored Backup Partition
Drive #3 - 160gb Mirrored Backup Partition
Online Backup, Daily
Offsite DVD backups of important stuff

Thanks again guys

TCimages · Sep 26, 2007

AdamZx3 said:
Thanks guys, good food for thought

I wont be using the pc for any kind of work if thats what you mean, the other partition would just be used for storing a few things , like a few gigs of video footage I don't want on my mac....but now that I think of it, it would be better to just have one partition and have a folder for backup and store the video on that partition lol.

One question on the raid 0...say if my drive #1 fails, I can just plug drive #2 in with no probs...or does it need some sort of recovery software?

I will look into the 1TB NAS, but when I actually start making money I will probably go with an Apple Xserve with raid5.

So as it stands now heres my current plan,

Working on Powermac, then sending over to the pc to backup with the Apple application "Backup 3" , which does creates a package for each session that you can w/o software manually open the package and extract the whole file. (never thought about opening in 10 years!)

PC Setup
Drive #1 - OS Files
Drive #2 - 160gb Mirrored Backup Partition
Drive #3 - 160gb Mirrored Backup Partition
Online Backup, Daily
Offsite DVD backups of important stuff

Thanks again guys

What I mean by working files is...actual files that you use daily or access daily. Even though they reside on a seperate drive, you access them and use them. You may inadvertantly save your changes to the original.

I used to use DVD's for backup, but I think you'll find with drives so cheap it's a much easier solution.

Info on Raid:

RAID 0: striped set (minimum 2 disks) without parity. Provides improved performance and additional storage but no fault tolerance. Any disk failure destroys the array, which becomes more likely with more disks in the array. A single disk failure destroys the entire array because when data is written to a RAID 0 drive, the data is broken into fragments. The number of fragments is dictated by the number of disks in the drive. The fragments are written to their respective disks simultaneously on the same sector. This allows smaller sections of the entire chunk of data to be read off the drive in parallel, giving this type of arrangement huge bandwidth. When one sector on one of the disks fails, however, the corresponding sector on every other disk is rendered useless because part of the data is now corrupted. RAID 0 does not implement error checking so any error is unrecoverable. More disks in the array means higher bandwidth, but greater risk of data loss.

RAID 1: mirrored set (minimum 2 disks) without parity. Provides fault tolerance from disk errors and single disk failure. Increased read performance occurs when using a multi-threaded operating system that supports split seeks, very small performance reduction when writing. Array continues to operate so long as at least one drive is functioning.

RAID 3 and RAID 4: striped set (minimum 3 disks) with dedicated parity. This mechanism provides an improved performance and fault tolerance similar to RAID 5, but with a dedicated parity disk rather than rotated parity stripes. The single disk is a bottle-neck for writing since every write requires updating the parity data. One minor benefit is the dedicated parity disk allows the parity drive to fail and operation will continue without parity or performance penalty.

RAID 5: striped set (minimum 3 disks) with distributed parity. Distributed parity requires all but one drive to be present to operate; drive failure requires replacement, but the array is not destroyed by a single drive failure. Upon drive failure, any subsequent reads can be calculated from the distributed parity such that the drive failure is masked from the end user. The array will have data loss in the event of a second drive failure and is vulnerable until the data that was on the failed drive is rebuilt onto a replacement drive.

RAID 6: striped set (minimum 4 disks) with dual distributed parity. Provides fault tolerance from two drive failures; array continues to operate with up to two failed drives. This makes larger RAID groups more practical, especially for high availability systems. As drives grow in size, they become more prone to error. This becomes increasingly important because large-capacity drives lengthen the time needed to recover from the failure of a single drive. Single parity RAID levels are vulnerable to data loss until the failed drive is rebuilt: the larger the drive, the longer the rebuild will take. With dual parity, it gives time to rebuild the array by recreating a failed drive with the ability to sustain failure on another drive in the same array.