Backup System For 5 PC SMB
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@BRRABill said:
@MattSpeller said:
It sounds a bit like you're trying to reinvent the wheel a bit, no offence intended.
Why not have restore disks hot and ready for these PC's and do crashplan? That will cover you WAY better if you replace a tower too.
None taken. I feel the same way, which is why I asked.
The users store a lot of data on their machines. In my experience it would take far too long to restore then pull the data back down. They used to have a service that they would express you the data, but that is now quite pricey and it adds a few days to the equation.
Why not change the way they store data? A robust NAS, like a SAM-SD would be awesome here.
If you want local storage of the backups as well as cloud based, you're going to need something onsite to hold that data, what do you/they plan that device to be? NAS/server with internal storage/old PC with internal storage, etc?
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@BRRABill OH! Easy peasy then. Get a synology NAS and setup "cloudsync". That'll keep all the data in any folder you could ever want, restore will be as fast as your LAN can go and if you REALLY want to keep full images onsite there will be nothing stopping you.
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@BRRABill said:
The users store a lot of data on their machines. In my experience it would take far too long to restore then pull the data back down. They used to have a service that they would express you the data, but that is now quite pricey and it adds a few days to the equation.
Should not, a good re-imaging process plus data backups is often fastest. Not like a VM that you can restore directly from an image, you'd be re-imaging the machines anyway.
I think you'll find either approach about equally fast if done well.
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@BRRABill said:
I mean I would like the option that, say, ShadowProtect has to be able to spin up the backup as a VM.
Yes, but it does not take an image backup. It takes a block level backup and builds an image.
Complicated, I know. It uses a custom driver inside of the OS. -
@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
No, they are physical.
Pretty much no one does image backups of physical desktops, because it is virtualization that generally powers the image-based backup system.
Central the Data in some manner then back it up. No one wastes time with doing bare-metal backups on desktops, not worth the trouble.
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https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/5.2/cloud_services
Select your size required, we use lots of these:
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@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
No, they are physical.
Pretty much no one does image backups of physical desktops, because it is virtualization that generally powers the image-based backup system.
Most of the SMB people I help are not enterprise. I know best practice would be to have a server, have all data on that, and voila. But almost none of the really small businesses I see do that. They run their business and have a bunch of personal files on their machines.
To be honest, I do the same. My work laptop has a ton of personal stuff on it. I use ShadowProtect for images, and also CrashPlan for file-level.
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@BRRABill said:
Most of the SMB people I help are not enterprise.
Which is why it seems strange that you are going for a more than enterprise backup system rather than something more SMB geared.
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Then schedule a task to run disk2vhd from microsoft at night and you have your perfect image.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/9790.hyper-v-p2v-with-disk2vhd.aspx
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@BRRABill said:
Most of the SMB people I help are not enterprise. I know best practice would be to have a server, have all data on that, and voila. But almost none of the really small businesses I see do that. They run their business and have a bunch of personal files on their machines.
It would be cheaper to get a small Linux file server or even windows to store data (or even a good NAS) than to do all this both in waste of time (OpEX) and Cost to do it (CapEX)
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@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
Most of the SMB people I help are not enterprise.
Which is why it seems strange that you are going for a more than enterprise backup system rather than something more SMB geared.
Actually I would think this would go more toward your "being weird" situation.
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@BRRABill said:
Most of the SMB people I help are not enterprise. I know best practice would be to have a server, have all data on that, and voila.
Well, I didn't suggest any central server for files at all. But that, obviously, is necessary to take these guys into the SMB category as central storage is needed to stay about the home line, IMHO. This isn't about SMB vs Enterprise, it is about SMB vs Hobby or low end home use.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
Most of the SMB people I help are not enterprise.
Which is why it seems strange that you are going for a more than enterprise backup system rather than something more SMB geared.
Actually I would think this would go more toward your "being weird" situation.
Not quite, but leaning slightly that way. I'd say more of the "You Are Not Special" where the SMB market tends to think that they need things above and beyond what an enterprise would have and just goes for huge overkill without realize how far they are overshooting the norm in one area while missing it dramatically in others.
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How big are your files? Could you just sign up for one drive and keep all files on it. It's not a true backup but provides more than you have now.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
Most of the SMB people I help are not enterprise.
Which is why it seems strange that you are going for a more than enterprise backup system rather than something more SMB geared.
Actually I would think this would go more toward your "being weird" situation.
Or what we might think of as an impedance mismatch: the backup solution is going to "enterprise+" while the storage system that is being backed up is "below smb." Overkill on one, underkill on the other.
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@Jason said:
How big are your files? Could you just sign up for one drive and keep all files on it. It's not a true backup but provides more than you have now.
Good thing to consider. This is really the "starting point" for the SOHO business range that we are talking about here. That approach should be considered before anything else.
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@Jason said:
It would be cheaper to get a small Linux file server or even windows to store data (or even a good NAS) than to do all this both in waste of time (OpEX) and Cost to do it (CapEX)
I agree, this approach isn't bad, but it doesn't feel like it is going to address the final goals in an optimum way.
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Also something huge that I have not seen mentioned, it has been hinted at but not stated: Going for image backups for rapid restores but lacking a local server means.... any restore will be done from some really slow media so the restore will take forever and the image backup will actually make that much slower than necessary rather than faster.
Did I miss any factor that would make the above incorrect?
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@BRRABill said:
But almost none of the really small businesses I see do that. They run their business and have a bunch of personal files on their machines.
This is a very important concept: just because people don't do smart things doesn't mean that we should not recommend that they do and help them fix bad practices.
Too often in IT we simply accept bad business processes, sometimes giving up so early that the business never finds out that we all think that they are missing the obvious, good answers. Sure, some businesses don't listen - it is the hallmark of the SMB market to make bad business decisions as we well know - but just because most SMBs do things poorly does not mean that we should not try to fix this where we can and should not continue to develop good practices and guidelines for them. Most SMBs don't do good storage or backups, but most don't stay in business low either. So what "most" do isn't a good guideline for anything to repeat.
Not that this business is making reckless decisions, sounds like they might just be imbalanced and not getting an optimum mix of storage and backup because they likely don't understand how one decision impacts another.
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Here are a few "throwing pasta at the wall" ideas to kick around:
- Get a small NAS to use for backups. Stick with StorageCraft or look at Veeam Endpoint Protection or similar. Use local backup files so that you can actually do fast restores. (You can then send this to a cloud backup location too if desired.)
- Move everyone to central NAS storage and fix their underlying issues. No need for all of this complication at all.
- Move everyone to storage through a product like ownCloud, MS Office 365 OneDrive for Business, Google Drive, DropBox, etc. Eliminate the issue completely.
- Continue to use backup products like StorageCraft and avoid getting a NAS but move to AetherStore to turn the unused local drive space into a backup target for the network.
