Tape backups

[anodos]

I am in the process of setting up offsite backups. I have alot of freedom regarding how to handle tape backups (I have not purchased software yet) and was wondering what people use for tape backups and how you handle them. I have a quantum LTO6 tape drive and a fairly simple network (Windows server acting as DC and two FreeNAS servers [one of which is a zfs replication target])

A few options that come to mind:

• Directly connecting the tape drive to my backup freenas device and using tar to write to the tapes (with my Windows server backing up to a CIFS share on the FreeNAS device).
• Installing some backup software on the windows server (with the tape drive connected to the Windows server) and mounting the data to be backed up via NFS or CIFS.
• Installing some backup software on the windows server that has FreeBSD compatible agent software.

Since I am only backing up two devices (windows server and data on freenas server) my software needs are fairly minimal (I'm not backing up lots of VMs and workstations) and so I want to avoid over-purchasing software.

What have you all tested that works well and what does not work well?

 

[cyberjock]

I don't think too many people try to do tape backup around here. Most people find it cheaper(and faster) to build a second server with a second pool. I think that LTO6 tapes store 2.5TB, and it's not uncommon to see people with 40+TB of storage. So, 15+ tapes? Most people don't want to spend 3 days swapping out tapes when they want to do a backup. ;)

ZFS offers a super simple and very fast backup method to another pool... ZFS replication. Most people use that because it doesn't require any work on their part for the entire process to be automated.

 

[Lordadmiral Drake]

cyberjock, he's already using ZFS Replication. The tapes are meant as a secondary backup measure.

Depending on your pool size you will need a lot of tapes. Handling them efficiently cries tape auto-loader to me, and those are expensive, we're talking 4k+ $ here
What kind of data do you have on your NAS that you consider this kind of backup?

 

[ser_rhaegar]

It may be cheaper to buy a second set of drives for the replication target and rotate them off site.

 

[anodos]

I have about 15TB of data. Tape drive is an autoloader. I am setting it up for a few reasons (1) second layer of backups - I'm a firm believer in Murphy's Law, (2) keep historic archive of data, and (3) tapes are very resilient.

I was just interested if anyone here uses tape backups and what software he or she uses that works well with FreeNAS. For example, Symantec Backup Exec can backup CIFS shares but this is not the recommended mode of operation (but preferred backup method involves installing client software on the server).

 

[jpoa]

Greetings,

I am about to embark on the same journey (tape backups over an existing backup architecture based on FreeNAS).

Some details about my scenario in case it is relevant for OP:

It is also a fairly straightforward network that supports a virtualisation scenario handling some services from BSD to Linux and Windows.

Main data is shared via iSCSI from an HP P2000 with RAID6 to two servers running XenServer (they share the load and one server takes over the VMs of the other if needed).

The VMs are being backed up (with their own mechanisms) to various datasets on a FreeNAS server (RAIDZ2). We also have some off-site backups but not as periodically was wanted and archives are scarce.

In order to mitigate this, we decided to install a tape system to perform:

(1) Regular archives, to be located off-site
(2) An extra layer of protection when things go wrong (I also think Murphy was right)


This system handles a complete data package of less than 2 TB, so fairly small.


At moment, the only thing "assured" on the table is the choice of LTO6 over LTO5 due to the extra capabilities and storage. (No given preference for the ultra-latest technology as long as it is reliable, tested and easy to setup). We are ok with out-of-the-easy-road setups as long as they work and are reliable.


Regarding how to write to tape we have two ideas:

[1] Connect to the FreeNAS server (old generation IBM server but has an SAS port, so I am hoping for a plug-and-play analogue)

[2] Connect to a backup VM and perform the backup operation over there

Option 1 seems neater so I ask, what are people using to write tapes with FreeNAS?

 

[Ericloewe]

As far as I know, there is no tape support in FreeNAS. The simplest option is to have FreeNAS send whatever needs to be backed-up to a machine that can actually handle the tapes.

Due to its nature, I highly doubt (but this is only an educated guess) a tape system would have the option to emulate a hard drive - which would be a requirement for it to work with FreeNAS. Random reads/writes would be extremely problematic, if not simply impossible.

In a nutshell, plug-and-play is out of the question.

 

[jpoa]

It "works" >> http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/lto-tape-archive.14619/#post-121865