[TriLUG] Linux Hardware Solution

[Thomas Gardner]

Hi Alan,

You got the details thing right....  I just took a look at the report
from my most recent full backup.  Now, based on backup alone (without
the compare and compression steps), and doing a little math (*GASP*),
I should be able to backup 166G in about 6 hours flat.  I'm not doing
anything special.  Actually, if anything, I'm doing it all wrong from
a performance point of view:

- 100 Mbit network (I'm actually running Gbit, but it often refuses
to connect at Gbit and falls back to 100M, and I can tell from my
report that this was one of those times).

- The machine I'm backing up to is an original model SheevaPlug.
Not the zippiest little NAS head in the world.

- I'm backing up my local disk to a file in an NFS mount, instead of
running the data from one machine to the other with a more efficient
protocol.

- The disk is the cheapest 120G IDE I could find at the time I
bought it.  It was big back then.  :-)

- I'm connecting said drive to said SheevaPlug using the cheapest
IDE/USB converter I could find at the time I bought that.  I think
I paid five or ten bucks for the thing.  Maybe fifteen, but I'm
sure it wasn't more than that.

- The partition I'm backing up to is encrypted (using the SheevaPlug,
not something on the drive).  That REALLY takes the wind out of the
sails of a machine, let me tell you.

Now, throwing in everything (backup, compare and then compression),
yeah, my math says that would take a little over 19 hours to back up
166G of data, but keep in mind, that's still going to an encrypted
partition.  So, then, we're back where we started (about the details):
What all are you including when you say ``backup''?  Are you comparing
the backup with the original data after backup?  Are you compressing?
If no to both, it sounds like something other than your hardware is
going wrong for you.  If yes to either of those, well, I can re-run
my numbers if you want.

If you're still looking to buy new systems, you might want to consider
one of the offerings from SheevaPlug.  I think they have offerings with
USB 3.0 now, I think they all have Gbit Ethernet.  I think they're
all fanless.  Some of their offerings have SATA ports, but if you
use USB, that would be hot swappable.  You can plug in however many
drives you want (within reason, of course) and configure them into
whatever kind of RAID whatever you like (within reason, of course).
It might be an ugly closet shelf full of wires, but hey, depending on
how much you intend to plug in, it should all fit on a closet shelf,
and you can just close the doors when the wife complains.  With cable
lengths being what they are for Ethernet, you can put the little
suckers just about anywhere.  If it's just for backups (i.e. you'll
never have to touch it with your hands), you could probably put one in
your crawlspace (where it stands the best chance of surviving a fire,
but the worst chance at surviving a flood).

I can give you my backup scripts if you want them, but I'm sure you'd
have to tweak them to get what you want out of them, instead of what
I wanted when I wrote them.  As long as you keep good backups, and
especially if you keep multiple copies of your backups on separate
media (I have another script for that) you can get away with buying
the cheapest disks you can find, and the plugs themselves ain't too
terrible spendy either.

L8r,
tg.

On 6/21/12, Alan Sterger <asterger at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Thanks Carl.
>
> Guess the devil is in the details.  I backup 3 SOHO computers to a
> Fantom Drive Raid0 USB 3.0 connected to a Linksys E3000 USB 2.0 port.
> It takes 13:15 hours to backup 166GB of data via USB 2.0 to the NTFS
> formatted drive.  The software, Acronis True Image 2012, handles image
> backups to Ext2/3, but cherry-picking files from a mounted drive will
> only work with NTFS.  Acronis also supports NAS, FTP, SMB...
>
> So my thinking was to purchase/build one of those small (sexy) Linux
> hardware devices supporting USB 3.0 to get near 5GB/sec throughput or at
> the least, a Gigabit NAS.  Fanless?  Well, maybe just reduced noise.  It
> just can't sound as loud as a Sparc server in a closet.
>
> Cheers,
>
> -- Alan
> --
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