Small Office Backup

I think that our Iomega Rev drive recently died. It's making not good noises with both of our disks. We recently bought a network storage unit, which is RAID 1. But this won't protect our files in case of fire. I'm debating on getting a new REV drive verses other solutions. (Removable hard drive, online backup). What do the small businesses use for off site storage?

How much data are we talking?
We use a Synology 411j with 2 disks in it right now, RAID mirrored gives us 2 TB. I am working on making it automatically backup to a similar unit at home via DSL. Best to sync it on-site first, then do differential backups to the remote unit to save on bandwidth.
But we also burn some DVD's occasionally to have something "locked in" and off-site.
If you don't have much data, a few portable HD's in rotation and the proper software will work wonders...

A removable hard drive is best for (secret) sensitive data. That and an Engineer's hammer to smash it with, just in case. DVD's or CD's are much lighter and eaiser to break. Online back up for the general, common to all small businesses, data. Things like tracking supplies, cleaning services, and etc...

We use the LaCie Rugged drives. They aren't really that stronger than a normal drive, but they do not require a power supply and seem to hold up well. They go in a Pelican case when off-site. Don't forget to keep the cables with them as you will not be able to find them if you are freaking out trying to restore your data for a project.

Our current system is 35GB Iomega Rev. Which backs up documents, databases, and project files. There are two disks, which are rotated twice a week. Security isn't as much as concern, as much as protection. I was thinking continuous backups to the 2 TB NAS, for information backup, and a portable hard drive sync's once a week, for disaster recovery.

Offsite solutions are the same as onsite solutions. Network attached storage in a Raid or UnRaid format. Online backup and local offsite backup.

In most IT enviroments we have a hot backup system onsite that does automatic failover and you lose zero data. Tape backups are good for large slow changing data and most buisnesses store tapes offsite in a secure location and use services such as iron mountain http://www.ironmountain.com/.

It is best to have encrypted and unencrypted backups because sometime encryption will bite you. Keep unencrypted backups in something like a bank vault very safe and only the buisness owner has access to it.

I like to keep long backup chains. I have backups that are 7 years old offsite because you just never know and with archived old data this is a good practice.

We use Sonic wall http://www.sonicwall.com/us/products/Backup_Recovery.html CDP for a continious live backup and local failover system as well as a site to site offsite bachup here and we use Drobo http://www.drobo.com/ which is hands down the worlds best network attached storage using UnRaid technology. Vey easy to manage and can take 2 disk failurs at once without losing any data and without having to stop using the NAS data. No standard Raid can do that. Very easy to setup and manage.

If you want good external drives go with seagate and we use hardware encryped hard drives from buslink http://www.buslink.com/ for very sensitive data.

For online backup many small buisnesses use carbonite and some use dropbox so users can securely get to the files rin a remote manner.

Thank you all for the advice. This is obviously not a simple question, as there seems to be many varying needs for security, and version history.

How big of a "small office" are we talking about?

One TB and larger external USB drives are dirt cheap. Back it up and take it home. As solutions go, it does have a low "coolness" quotient, but it is a simple inexpensive solution for a small office.

I like Alaric's external USB drive idea for cheap and quick. I recommended this for our system but it is too slow.

The next plan is to backup into the cloud some place. This may be too slow for us too.

We have a fancy ( expensive ) tape drive system. Each tape holds a few GB which is more than you can get on a USB drive. Also, the backup rate is MUCH faster. Speed was important to us because of the amount of data we back up is huge and it all needs to be backed up before the next day starts.

Finally the small tapes are relatively robust whereas the hard disks in the USB drive are not.

We use a minumum of 20 tapes.
We have the daily backups Monday-Thursday. These don't get taken off site
We have the weekly backups. 2nd-5th Friday. These are taken off site by me.
We have the monthly backups. Jan-Dec. These are taken off site by someone else.
We have been doing this for years and never have lost data.

The Plc Kid said:

Vey easy to manage and can take 2 disk failurs at once without losing any data and without having to stop using the NAS data. No standard Raid can do that.

Click to expand...

FYI, Raid 6 can handle 2 disk failures without losing data.

Brian123 said:

FYI, Raid 6 can handle 2 disk failures without losing data.

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True but you have to use the exact same type and size hard drives and you can not use the data during a rebuild. With Unraid systems you can.

Unraid systems are much easier to scale and Re Allocate Space.

The Plc Kid said:

True but you have to use the exact same type and size hard drives and you can not use the data during a rebuild. With Unraid systems you can.

Unraid systems are much easier to scale and Re Allocate Space.

Click to expand...

ZFS is superior to all of those. You can even have three times the parity. It even fixes raid write hole.