Backup System For 5 PC SMB
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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.
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Also a good way to ensure the backups are actually working. Virtualboot the image every now and again.
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@DustinB3403 said:
And I have to ask why does he not want an on-site server to backup these PC's too? And what data are you looking to backup from these PC's?
And this might have been answered already, but does a dedicated desktop, a semi-dedicated desktop or a small NAS device count as the server in this scenario or would the customer be okay with those kinds of things?
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@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.
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@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.
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@Jason said:
@DustinB3403 said:
Oh
Well have you considered a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure? What Desktop OS's are in use? The only way you'd be able to take advantage of a VM "backup" is if you have the infrastructure for it.
Which if you do, you're likely already running a Hypervisor of some sort. What Hypervisor is at the site?
VDI for 5 Pc's? Heck no, you need lots of scale for VDI to make sense. There are lots of costs involved with a VDI deployment. Desktops would be far far cheaper both in captial and operational expenses at this size.
Way better to pay for a really robust backup system than for VDI licensing!
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@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
Boot it on what? For example, if you store the images on a NAS, you can't boot the image on the NAS, it doesn't have a hypervisor to run it on.
Both ShadowProtect and Datto use VirtualBox.
I'd take a laptop there with VirtualBox, copy the image over, and boot it.
You can't have a product like ShadowProtect or Datto without something to run it on. AKA a server. That's not to say you have to run a server OS (though often, but not always, is the best situation).
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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.
