[ale] what is a good offsite back up proposal?

[Greg Freemyer]

> >
> >
> > I am open to building a separate server if needed.
> >
> I don't see any other option. I have not heard of any network backup
> service that offers space of that size.

I would build your own, but I did some research on this idea last
month, so a few facts for you:

http://www.rsync.net/products/index.html should have a 2 TB offering.
$0.64/GB for over a TB per their pricesheet.  ie. $1280/month for your 2 TB.

I ended up using dreamhost.com.  They are only $20/month for a
supposed 350GB storage facility. But I find I get the below speeds
making the 350GB unrealistic to really use (for me anyway).

rsync transfer rate 1 GB/hr   (My T-1 maybe the limiting factor?)
rsync non-transfer rate 30 GB/hr.   (ie. If I have zero delta's it
takes this long to verify it.)

I have been using the rsync --max_size flag to send more and more data
each night.  (I'm trying not to overload their systems during daytime
hours when they seem to be busier)  I should have my full 45GB
mirrored there in the next couple days.

If I ever have to do a restore it appears it should take a couple days
to pull it all back.  At 1 GB/hr a 2 TB server would take almost 3
months to restore from a site like that.

OTOH, if you own the remote server and can Fed-Ex the drives around
you can do it overnight.

Also, If you decide to build your own server, then I would recommend
Rdiff-backup as a good backup solution.  It uses the network
efficiency of rsync to implement a traditional multiple point in time
backup strategy.  Specifically it keeps a copy of the current files
offsite and a series of deltas to let you get to historical versions.
Definitely the best offsite backup software I have used yet.  (If is
CLI only as far as I know.)

Greg
-- 
Greg Freemyer
The Norcross Group
Forensics for the 21st Century