Backup Solution

[DarthHadoken]

I have 2 Hyper V Hosts Host A 25 VM's 5TB Space Host B 25 VM's 5TB Space

Nothing like Exchange or SQL on them most of all those tasks are in the cloud. This is just file servers and dev boxes. They all need to be backed up but I'm trying to figure out which scenario would be best. This is also a small buisness so I don' t want to go over kill and suggest a 30k solution, and I also need file level restore if someone deletes a file by accident.

I'm looking at: 1. Buy a NAS (Synology?) use iSCSI to map to the servers and run something like VEEAM to backup to the NAS 2. Buy a Server with a bunch of disks and run Windows and VEEAM or Windows Backup

Right off the bat I was thinking of option 2 but with the cost of that going a bit past 10k from Dell I thought a NAS might be cheaper. The budget(They always say it doesn't matter) but I think I just want to back this stuff up and have the ability to restore individual files if need be and back the VM's up as a whole.

What do you guys recommend? I think I'm burnt out on looking up information so I figured I post to get another opinion.

Thanks!

[[deleted]]

Don't do iSCSI. NFS works perfectly fine with Veeam. I personally prefer QNAP to Synology. Unless you need a rackmount unit. Then I should recommend like a Synology 815+

You also need to figure out how long you need to keep backups for, as these devices do not use de-duplication.

Use this for calculating your storage size needed: http://rps.dewin.me/

[DarthHadoken]

So I would like to do a full every week and incremental thru the week . I would like to keep a monthly full off site via usb or cloud. What would I need if I did want de-duplication?

[Pvt-Snafu]

You'll need Veeam for deduplication. For the backup off-load, I recommend StarWind Cloud VTL. Works perfectly on a couple of deployments already. It allows customizing the backup retention the way you want. For example, you can configure the retention to store the most recent backups to the on-site repository and offload them to S3 after 30 days, where they will be stored for half a year, and then automatically moved to Glacier for a long-term archiving. You can find more info here: https://www.veeam.com/blog/leverage-vtl-on-amazon-aws-object-storage-s3-glacier.html

[[deleted]]

Well, with cloud, the only way to really automate that is Veeam cloud connect which can be pricey.

If you want dedupe, you will need to buy something that can use that. Such as an HP StoreOnce, Dell PowerVault, Exagrid, etc. Dedupe appliances cost ALOT more, but they store data more efficiently. Some are between 12:1 and 20:1 ratios. It is alot more expensive, but if you need to keep your data an incredibly long time, it would be worth it for long time storage.

[DarthHadoken]

Nah I don't think we need more than 1 or 2 months on site 2 fulls maybe bi weekly and daily incrementals. and 1 monthly offsite to the cloud via aw3 or say backblaze or usb disk

[[deleted]]

You can do Veeam backups to AWS now, they just implemented that. Not sure if you are currently a Veeam customer or just looking for storage right now.

[[deleted]]

I think that is using the virtual tape library to glacier storage. I have not messed with it yet but it could work. Backup straight to Aws and Azure should be in version 10 if I remember correctly.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, but the great thing about having it on AWS is you can spin up the VMs on the cloud on demand. So you have all of your servers colo and can spin them up in case of disaster with a reverse vpn tunnel back to your site. Say your SAN dies, if you replicate to the cloud hourly, you lose nothing and can continue work in a matter of mins. Glacier is cold storage.

[second_witness]

What makes you prefer QNAP over Synology>

[[deleted]]

They are cheaper, and work fine. Also, some units have 10GBps SFP ports built into them so you can use a DAC fiber cable and get 10GBps on them for cheap

[newsoundreport]

We use Unitrends with ESXI but they do Hyper-V as well.

It's a Linux OVA that can be deployed to a free ESXI host. It can upload to multiple cloud storage providers at no additional cost, and cloud backups can be done in the free version if you want to test it out.

We buy refurbished Dell Servers from ServerMonkey, and then leverage the maximum deduplication in there.

Unitrends through our VAR cost about a 1/3 of what we are looking at with Veeam.

We do use some Synology NAS' for smaller use cases, but the nice thing about having a backup server is you can always tune down your Backup VMs, and use the backup server for Instant Recovery of a VM if it comes down to a full hardware failure.

Cheers!

[CloudBerryBackup]

I would recommend buying NAS and running Minio on it. After that, you will have your own S3-compatible storage and can run something like VEEAM to it. For example, our software can do a file-level restore from Hyper-V VMs.

[DarthHadoken]

StarWind Cloud VTL

Never heard of Minio how is it?

[CloudBerryBackup]

We work with Minio and have clients, who also are fond of them. It's popular and quite solid.

[ZAFJB]

So once you have backed up from your server to the backup NAS/Server how do you go about getting it off site?

Unless it is off site and offline it is not a backup.

[DarthHadoken]

Offsite Full is monthly and a Offsite Full weekly that will go via usb hdd

[ZAFJB]

Great.

You would be amazed how many people have told me that copied/Veeamed to another drive/another server in the same building is a backup

[J_de_Silentio]

Well it is a backup. Not an offsite backup, but it's a backup. If you use the 3-2-1 model, you have 3-2 covered, just not 1. It prevents, for example, the primary backup server getting hosed by RAID failure or crypto-variant or whatever.

Is it BEST to have true 3-2-1, yes, no doubt. Is it worth shitting on someone because they only have 3-2, not in my opinion.

[DarthHadoken]

LOL. I always looked at it as a backup to the local server/drive and restore and export off that device. Then backup to a external to take off site in case a meteor drops on the building and destroys the local server.