Disaster Recovery....options?

[trd2turbo]

So we have about 200Gb of data that currently just get backed up every night to Tape. (LT1 HP tapes) I have a cycle of about three weeks and every week I take one set home just to have a set off site.

However upon the event of a major disaster, or even just the main server failing I would basically be put in a situation where I have to scramble to put together a server, run a full restore from tape, and hope it works. Tapes afterall are not always guranteed to recover 100% data. This brings about at least 2-3 days downtime assuming I work around the clock to get it back up. I know there are data backup services where you can transfer data everynight but that still brings me to a point of having my data with no server to put it on which still brings days of downtime.

What are my options? I want to image the server, and still keep tapes just in case. There is a particular vendor that charges about $900 a month and i basically lease a backup server that in case of an emergency we can image our main server and virtualize it on there. Which would be hours instead of days. And this is just buying time because I would still need to buy another server anyway. I do like the service but at $900 a month I would like to explore other options.

How difficult would it be to build my own backup server offsite and have my data backup to it? Would it be cheaper to just stay with tape backup and have another server already built so at least I have the hardware ready to go and just try and run a full restore? Granted if I went 2-3 years without needing it, it would still be less than the $900 a month to bcasically borrow a server from some company. 5-6 thousand is enough to build a replacement and have ready to roll out.


What does everybody else do???? Keep in mind I have about 200GB of data to backup every night.

[glc]

Backing up 200gb over the Internet will take forever.

Build a server and keep it at home. Bring tapes home (or some other backup medium) and restore them periodically. This way you can at least have a server at home ready to bring in with close to current information.

[Negeva]

Why take the server home? Just have a second server replicate the first, that way if anything happens to the first server the second will kick in and take up the slack. That way you're still with a server whilst repairs are undertaken.

Maybe, just backup to hdd - cheaper than ever nowadays.

[trd2turbo]

Originally Posted by Negeva Why take the server home? Just have a second server replicate the first, that way if anything happens to the first server the second will kick in and take up the slack. That way you're still with a server whilst repairs are undertaken. Maybe, just backup to hdd - cheaper than ever nowadays.

Taking it home would be because in case a tornado comes in and destroys the whole building, it wont take out two servers. Thats why I take one set of tapes home. If something comes out and take both locations out.....then the world will probab be over so I wont have to worry about it.

[Negeva]

Originally Posted by trd2turbo Taking it home would be because in case a tornado comes in and destroys the whole building, it wont take out two servers. Thats why I take one set of tapes home. If something comes out and take both locations out.....then the world will probab be over so I wont have to worry about it.

Fully aware of keeping backups off-site. Recently, my brother's company tech guys have started using NAS raided devices for backups; these are about the size of a Shuttle case with two (or more) hdd in mirrored RAID. They plug them in and then remove off-site.

My other comments were regarding what you would do without the server if it ever went down: hence the replication to another server.