ComputerHunter.org |
|
|
|||
|
 |
An Introduction to Tape Backup
If you run a small business, chances are you're saving important files to a server. But what happens when disaster strikes? How are you ensuring that your files won't be lost? Many people fail to realize that the loss of files could cripple their business. You can insure your office and equipment, but you can't insure files. You can't repair or buy back lost files. Ipso facto, they are lost! This brings us to the concept of disaster recovery. What is disaster recovery? If you're thinking that disaster recovery is about frantically trying to get back data that's already been lost, then you're already behind the 8-ball! Disaster recovery is about safeguarding your organization's data so that it can be safely restored in event of a crippling disaster. And having an industry-standard file backup strategy is undoubtedly the most important part of disaster recovery. What you have to do is ensure that all files on the server are backed up to another storage medium -- tape, removable hard disk, NAS device, and so on. Most businesses choose to use tape. Let's look at how you can set up a tape backup strategy for your own business. 1. Tape -- the perfect backup medium Isn't tape an anachronism in the age of optical disks, removable hard drives and a plethora of whiz-bang, random-access storage media? Tape is indeed a dinosaur in relative terms, but it's ideal for backup. Tape is slow, but can store a lot of data... one mid-range tape should be enough to backup your entire server. Plus, tape is extremely cheap -- mid-range tapes cost around $20 each. 2. When should you backup? Typically, tape backup is performed at the end of each day. Just put in the tape and let the backup process run overnight. If your server ever suffers a catastrophic disaster, you have at least saved all your files from the previous day. 3. Tape Rotation The ideal tape backup solution would involve using a new tape for each backup. This means purchasing a new tape for every day of your business's operations. This is hardly cost-effective for your business. Tape is cheap, but not that cheap! This is why we speak of tape rotation. Tape rotation means to reuse tapes from previous backups. The simplest tape rotation scheme is to have one tape for each day of the working week. Tapes are labelled Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. You can restore data from any one of the tapes in your library, or in this case, any day in the past the week. This strategy requires only five tapes, but only provides one week's data backup history. 4. Grandfather-Father-Son -- A Case Study The grandfather-father-son schedule is the most widely used method, and involves backing up data in the following way: * daily -- on the "son tapes" This system is far more powerful than the five-tape rotation, but requires more tapes. This strategy provides you with the ability to restore data from the last week, plus any Monday over the last month, plus any month for as many monthly tapes as you have. Variations on this scheme are available, and provide a trade-off between the number of tapes required, and the number of monthly tapes available. 5. Different types of backup Different types of backups are available in backup software. * Full -- all files, system data A Full backup will copy all files and system data to the backup media. It allows for the complete restore of all data from one single tape. Differential, Incremental and Daily are partial backups are designed to reduce amount of data backed-up to the media, resulting in faster backups. To restore data using one of these backups, the last Full backup tape will also be required, along with any other partial backups since the last Full backup. 6. Tape backup software At this point you may be thinking that performing tape backup is a complex task. Tape rotations, incremental backups... sure, you can try to do this manually, but this would make the backup process hiddeously difficult and prone to human error! The solution is to invest in a good piece of server backup software that will manage and schedule your tape backups for you. What should you look for in tape backup software? For many small business owners, the price is crucial. Many brands of backup software are just too expensive -- in the $1000+ range -- and contain features that you'll never need. Look for a backup utility that's designed specially for small business instead. It should be simple-to-use, reliable and affordable. Choose a good tape backup software and you'll be well on your way to safeguarding your files and data. Linus Chang is a backup expert and the lead developer of BackupAssist-- backup software that is simple and affordable, and perfect for small and medium businesses. Protect your Windows servers, including SQL Server and Exchange Server, to tape, REV drive, hard drive, NAS and more, at a fraction of the cost of other backup programs. Designed as a fix for NTBackup bugs and issues.
Google News - Top Stories
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Choosing a Tape Drive Tape drives remain the leading technology used by organizations for backup and archiving. However, the plethora of tape drives on the market can make choosing the appropriate tape drive a confusing task. How do you select a tape drive that satisfies your needs without blowing the budget? The following are just some of the main factors to consider. A Technical Introduction to Audio Cables What is so important about cables anyway? Ceramic Disc Capacitor-How to Accurately Test It The last article I mentioned about electrolytic capacitor breakdown when under load. In this article I will talk about the high voltage resin coated ceramic disc capacitor. In computer monitor, it is frequent used in the screen voltage (G2) line at the crt board. When it fails, it can cause erratic or intermittently raster bright and dim and sometimes no display. Correctional Institution Preventive Maintenance Software There is a great need for preventive maintenance in correctional institutions. The public would be at risk if penal facilities waited to solve problems until after they manifested themselves. Correctional institution preventive maintenance software is necessary to ensure that life in the facility runs smoothly and none of the prisoners escape. As the governments and other organizations allot revenues for correctional facilities, there may be debate about the costs of such maintenance. Although the software is expensive, it is both effective and necessary. At War With The Internet When it comes to sales of technology products over the Internet, there are now two factors that potential buyers must consider as possibly 'too good to be true'. In the past, there was only price to worry about. If the price was too low, buyer beware. But now a second factor has emerged, in the form of a new kind of company for web surfers to consider as possibly also 'too good to be true'. For if this company is 'good', then a new revolution on the web is about to occur. Because if this company is 'true', then the cleansing of the internet of corruption and lies has finally begun in earnest, with one company willing to police itself. A Review of Refurbished Toshiba Laptops Toshiba offers a few of their refurbished laptops in the "Clearance Store" of their official website toshibadirect.com. There you can purchase their laptops at 20-30% discounts, refurbished and as good as new. Toshiba inspects all returned and overstocked notebooks, replaces any defective parts, and resells them. You the consumer reap the benefits. Five Band Resistor Color Code-What Does The Last Band Of White Color Represent? In electronic repair, most of the time i came across five band resistor color code. The purpose of using the five colour band resistor in a circuit is that it provide a more accurate value compare to the four color band. For example in order to get the value of 22.6kohm, with four colors band resistor you will not be able to find it. The most you can get is 22k (red,red,orange and gold). If with the five color band you will be able to calculate it (red, red, blue, red, brown)the last color which is brown represent 1% tolerance. You may go to google search engine and type resistor color code, resistor color coding, resistor color code calculator, or resistor color code chart to know more about how to calculate a five band resistor values. Wireless Networking, Part 2: Setup and Security The first installment in this two-part series of Tech Tips provided an introduction to the basic capabilities and hardware involved in wireless networking. In the final installment of this two-part series, we will look at some of the basic setup and security considerations that should be addressed. The physical installation of a wireless network may be easier than a wired network, but the more difficult part is setting up the software and security to make sure everything stays up and running without incident. SED is Coming One of the bigger challenges facing display manufacturers is to develop a picture with the same warm characteristics as Cathode Ray Tube, but with far less weight and size. Your Business versus Mother Nature Business Consultants earn hundreds of thousands of dollars every year showing businesses how to improve their productivity. All business consultants in the Information Technology area agree that the biggest threat to business survival is data loss. Used Laptop Computer: Your Quick Purchase Inspection Guide ? Part 1 Used laptop computers are everywhere these days. How can you sift through the mass of available used laptop computers to narrow your search down to the right laptop for you? Here are a few suggestions to keep in mind. An Introduction to HD-DVD High density digital versatile disc is a digital optical media format which is being developed. HD DVD is similar to the competing Blu-ray Disc. It is currently in a format war with the Blu ray disc proposed by the Blu ray disc association. What is EEPROM ? EEPROM stands for Electrical Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory and also referred to as EPROM. As the name suggest, an EEPROM can be both erased and programmed with electrical pulses. Since it can be both electrically written into and electrically erased, the EEPROM can be rapidly programmed and erased in circuit for reprogramming without removing them from the circuit board. Thumb Drives - Great New Technology! The ability to easily move data from PC to PC with minimal inconvenience is just another benefit computers have brought to the current business world. The Printer Cartridge Game Think you got a great deal on a printer? Like the rest of us, you probably paid $50 to $75 for a decent Epson or Lexmark printer. What's the catch, you might have asked? Most salesmen would say there is no catch. They'd probably go into a rant about how the printer market has gotten more competitive, driving prices way down. While that's a true statement, it isn't the primary reason for such inexpensive printers these days. Setting up a Network -- Wired or Wireless? Wireless networks are en vogue, but your installation won't be successful unless you chose the right type of network and set it up properly. Wired networks require that each computer be connected via a wire to a central location, called a switch or hub. This often involves installing cables through walls and ceilings and can present a challenge for anyone. Buying Laser Toner Cartridges Compatible Laser Toner Cartridges Emergency Response VSAT Internet Communications As 2005 begins, there are a number of products on the market which enable Emergency Response Units to have internet connectivity at remote disaster locations. The products marketed this year mount on vehicles from Fire Rescue units to most any type of truck or van, on specially designed trailers utilizing portable generators and in transportable boxes which can be shipped by UPS or Fed X overnight to most any location in the U.S. A response team's greatest challenge is to know enough about how this mobile satellite internet technology works and what the differences are in quality of transmission based on the equipment chosen and services provided by the Satellite Internet Provider. Video Encryption What is Video Encryption? War of the Disks: A Close-in Analysis of the Hard Disk Drive vs. the Solid State Disk Much has been written about solid state disks (SSDs) becoming the next big thing1 in the IT industry(1). But as to whether or not we have enough knowledge of how it will revolutionize the industry is a different question. How much do we really know about SSDs? If we are to ask people on the streets, it wouldn't come as a surprise that they dont know much of what an SSD is. Even if they do know, most probably it would be limited to a USB pen drive, a CompactFlash or a Secure Digital card, which are more on the consumer side of the storage industry. Technically speaking, they are not wrong. Most web definitions describe an SSD as a high-performance plug-and-play storage device that contains no moving parts. Therefore, given that most of the aforementioned mobile disk storage devices contain no movable parts, they can certainly be categorized as SSDs. But then again, there's more to SSDs than being a non-volatile device. The purpose of this article is to give readers a clearer picture of what an SSD is, its usage as well as its difference when pitted against the predominant data storage device at present - the hard disk drive (HDD). More than its non-volatility, this article will reveal how much potential SSDs have in optimizing the performance of the computing system. SSD Defined Here are several ways the SSD is defined: "A solid state disk (SSD) is electrically, mechanically and software compatible with a conventional (magnetic) hard disk or winchester. The difference is that the storage medium is not magnetic (like a hard disk) or optical (like a CD) but solid state semiconductor such as battery backed RAM, EPROM or other electrically erasable RAM-like chip. This provides faster access time than a disk, because the data can be randomly accessed and does not rely on a read/write interface head synchronising with a rotating disk. The SSD also provides greater physical resilience to physical vibration, shock and extreme temperature fluctuations. The only downside is a higher cost per megabyte of storage."(2) "Abbreviated SSD, a solid state disk is a high-performance plug-and-play storage device that contains no moving parts. SSD components include either DRAM or flash memory boards, a memory bus board, a CPU, and a battery card. Because they contain their own CPUs to manage data storage, they are a lot faster (18MBps for SCSI-II and 44 MBps for UltraWide SCSI interfaces) than conventional rotating hard disks ; therefore, they produce highest possible I/O rates. SSDs are most effective for server applications and server systems, where I/O response time is crucial. Data stored on SSDs should include anything that creates bottlenecks, such as databases, swap files, library and index files, and authorization and login information."(3) For the rest of the article, we will compare the HDDs and Flash-based SSDs. The latter are the most popular type of SSDs employed by the military, aerospace, industrial and embedded systems industries. Mortality Rate Hard disk failure is a common occurrence in this age of desktops and notebooks. A lot of horror stories have been told, passed around and even published about how valuable data was lost and the agony of trying to retrieve or at least save a portion of the crashed hard drive. It is during this time that people wonder, why do hard disks fail? The reason is simple - wear and tear. Just like any good old machine with mechanical components, HDDs tend to deteriorate over time. HDDs consist of rotating, magnetically coated disks, known as platters, that are used to store data. This rotating motion of the mechanical arms results in much wear and tear after long periods of use. The operational lifespan of a computer HDD is over three years.(4) A Flash-based SSD is different. Although the most common Flash chips have around 300,000 write cycles, the best Flash chips are rated at 1,000,000 write cycles per block. On top of that, Flash SSD manufacturers employ different ways to increase the longevity of the drives. In some cases, they use a "balancing" algorithm to monitor the number of times each disk block has been written, which greatly extends the operational lifespan of the drive. Furthermore, these manufacturers also designed special "wear-leveling" algorithms where once a certain percentage threshold for a given block is reached, the SSD will swap the data in that block with the data in another block that has exhibited a "read-only-like" characteristic in the background. This reduces performance lag and avoids further wearing off of the blocks and thrashing of the disk. Even with usage patterns of writing/reading gigabytes per day, a Flash-based SSD should last several years, depending on its capacity. Add to that the inclusion of a DRAM cache in the disk architecture that further enhances its operational capabilities as well as lifespan. Speeding Up With the very fast paced lifestyle these days, most businesses are time-bound and cannot afford a slowing down in their transactions. This makes speed of HDDs a crucial point in technological purchases. The typical access time for a Flash based SSD is about 35 - 100 s, whereas that of a rotating disk is around 5,000 - 10,000 s. That makes a Flash-based SSD approximately 100 times faster than a rotating disk. This however raises another point - what's the benefit of a high-speed SSD when the entire system cannot support it? The evolution of CPUs in terms of performance has far surpassed the development of the data storage system. The HDD is actually limiting the potential of a computer system when they are not able to keep up with the performance of the other components, particularly the CPU. If an HDD is replaced by a high-speed SSD, the performance would significantly improve. The resulting system would be a high-powered set-up that can go beyond the demands of high-speed business or military environments. Size Matters To be a true plug-in replacement for HDDs, Flash-based SSDs are manufactured in standard 2.5" and 3.5" form factors. 2.5" SSDs are normally used in laptops or notebooks while the 3.5" form factors are used in desktops, or in JBOD or other SAN/NAS/DAS configurations. They can often be used to replace traditional disks in storage arrays or in a server's internal disk bays. Flash-based SSDs certainly fit the storage needs of most embedded systems that require much smaller form factors. Reliability In terms of reliability, conventional HDDs pale when compared to SSDs. The absence of mechanical arms and spinning platters is the reason behind its reliability. In demanding environments, SSDs provide the type of ruggedness required for mobile applications. Unlike the HDD, SSD's can withstand extreme shock and vibration with data integrity and without any danger of data loss. This feature is very important in industrial applications where exposure to highly combustible materials and electromagnetic radiation are typical. Their ability to deliver unnerving performance in extreme conditions also makes SSD play a vital role in military operations, be it in defense, aerospace or aviation applications. Military applications require, in most cases, an operating temperature range of -60C to +95C. Shock, vibration, and temperature ratings of HDDs cannot comply with military standards, only SSDs can. Power Play In addition to speed, reliability and mortality rate being positively affected by the SSD's non-volatility, they also consume much less power than traditional HDDs. No additional power is required to activate the platters or the mechanical arms present in most HDDs. Its power consumption is practically only a fraction of a hard disk drive. Heat Dissipation Along with the lower power consumption, there is also much lesser heat dissipation for systems using Flash-based SSDs as their data storage solution. This is due to the absence of heat generated from the rotating/movable media. This certainly proves to be the one of the main advantages of Flash-based SSDs relative to that of a traditional HDD. With less heat dissipation, it serves as the ideal data storage solution for mobile systems such as PDAs, notebooks, etc. Users can do away with large cooling fans, internal power supply and batteries for large storage arrays in storage area networks. Cost Considerations Of course, everything comes with a price. Based on a cost-benefit logic, it is but expected that something with very impressive features be priced higher than something that offers fewer benefits. SSDs as being a bit more pricey than the traditional hard disk drive may be one of the compelling reasons why up to now it hasn't gained as much popularity as it should be getting with all its brilliant functions. While the use of SSDs today have mostly been limited to industrial and military implications, enterprise are now looking closely at SSDs for implementing tiered storage and optimizing their storage architectures. To quote from the Solid State Disks Buyers Guide published by storagesearch.com, "In fact the SSD is replacing servers and software licenses. SSDs can be used either to speed up the response time of existing applications as an alternative to buying more servers, or to reduce the number of servers and software licenses deployed. The economics can be compellingly in favor of an SSD deployment". The industry is also expecting more breakthroughs as higher memory capacities and faster performance are now being produced for a wider array of choices fit for any mission-critical application. Analysts foresee a rapidly closing gap between HDD and flash SSD pricing (see related article "Are Flash Solid-State Disks Ready for the Enterprise"(5) ). This vision is also bolstered by a recent announcement(6) of electronic giant Samsung that they will invest heavily in improving their flash and DRAM production lines and flash SSD equipped laptops. Only time will tell if we will witness widespread commercial adoption of SSDs.(end) This article has been reprinted from www.e-disk.com
|
|
|
|
|
