eBabble » backup

Small Business Backup Basics

Scott VanderPloeg — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:08:15 +0000

Blast from the past: originally published May 3rd 2002.

Once you have a small business up and running with a handful of computers you have to look at a serious backup strategy. Programs can be reinstalled, updates downloaded again, but the data generated by yourself and those around you is unique and should be protected. The best way to protect that information is to store it centrally and perform regular backups. To accomplish our goal we’ll look at both ends of the process; setting up the server and setting up the clients.

Let’s take a step back and look at the server. Every business with multiple users, big or small, should have a dedicated server. A separate machine that shares files, printers, internet access, email, intranet pages, etc. The two most common operating systems for a server are Linux and Windows NT or 2000. Our process here is generic and will work with either. As well all machines, server and clients, should have anti-virus software and the latest virus signature updates.

Our first step is to set up a bunch of folders ( directories ) on the server; one common folder with access for all users and individual user folders with restricted access. Every user on your network should have their own login and password, so permissions can be set on folders to limit access on the network. All users on your network ( remove “everyone” access if there ) have access to a common folder, so documents can be shared and worked on collaboratively. I usually call the folder common or company, and share the folder on the network with the same name.

Each user has a folder created for them as well, with access restricted to that user and the administrator. That way a level of privacy and security can be maintained for the individuals documents. This folder can be named the same as the users login, typically first initial and last name, and shared with the same name followed by a $ sign. Adding the $ at the end of the share lets the server know to hide this share, so those browsing the network through Network Neighborhood won’t see them.

To make sure these two shares are available to users at all times you can run a batch file when they log in. This option is found under the user’s properties. Here’s a typical instruction for Windows PCs:

@echo off
net use X: \\server\common
net use Y: \\server\user$

Use Notepad or any text editor to enter the save it as a *.bat file. The net command has been built into every Windows version since 3.11 so this will work. It tells the operating system to map the common folder to drive X and the user’s private folder to drive Y. Simple and straightforward. Through this file you can also copy over virus signatures, flash messages and perform general PC “housekeeping”.

Moving on to the client PCs, we want to set them up to use only their network drive for saving files. If we keep all data on the server and back it up nightly, everything is safe.

This is a two step process: make the software use the network drive as the default location and keep reminding the users to only save software on their “personal and private” drives. Since Windows 98 you have been able to specify the location of the My Documents folder. Right click on My Documents, select properties and under Target enter the drive letter of the users private share. This will take care of all applications that are certified for the OS, such as Microsoft Office. For others you’ll have to set the default directory through the application’s options or preferences menu. This will also have to be done for every application if you’re still using Windows 95. Microsoft Office users can take advantage of the Office Profile Wizard to backup all their customizations of the office suite.

This takes care of most files, but doesn’t include email applications. Microsoft Outlook is the most common email application and saves everything into one *.pst file. The location of the file varies by operating system, but can be found by searching for it. The safest option is to move the user’s *.pst file to their network share. This method varies on every version of Outlook, but can be found by hunting in the Options menu or by right clicking on Personal Folders and selecting Properties. A surefire method is to locate the *.pst file and copy it to the network share. When Outlook is opened the next time it will indicate the pst file cannot be located; you then browse for the file and everything’s good to go.

Other email applications vary in how they store files, generally spreading them across multiple files. For Outlook Express backup and restore check out this excellent site.

Laptop users need another option, as the machine isn’t always connected to the network. The best practice for them is to store all their documents in the c:\My Documents folder and synchronize with the server when they log in. Here’s how to set up their login file:

@echo off
net use X: \\server\common
net use Y: \\server\user$
xcopy “C:\My Documents\*.*” “Y:\My Documents” /M /E /Y

This is the same as our first file but with the xcopy command added. This line is copying all files from the C: drive of the laptop or local computer to the user’s My Documents folder on the network share. It will be annoying when the connect to the network but will keep the data safe. The end switches are as follows: /M copies only files with the archive attribute set and then turns off the attribute, /E copies all sub directories and files, /Y indicated yes to overwriting files with the same name. The last two are pretty straightforward, so let’s talk about the archive attribute. Each file has an attribute called archive that can be on or off. Most applications can turn this on or off, including basic DOS commands, Windows Explorer, even File Manager from Windows 3. The concept here is once the file has been copied over the archive attribute is set to off. When the file is worked on and saved it’s automatically turned back on. When xcopy is run again it only looks for files with archive on and leaves the others that haven’t been worked on since the last backup. Quick and easy.

Now we have basic file protection set up through shares on the server and users storing all documents in those shares. Our second backup script will protect machines that infrequently access the network by copying their documents when they do connect. Now our only concern is keeping the documents on the server backed up and secure. I’d like to believe that anyone who sold you a small business server included a tape drive in that machine, but this isn’t always the case. Recommended is a twofold backup strategy; RAID 1 mirroring of hard drives and tape backup for archiving.

RAID stands for redundant array of independent drives, and type 1 keeps a mirror image of one hard drive on a second hard drive. This can be accomplished via software to save money or via hardware for speed and operating system independence. This way if one hard drive fails the second mirror image has all your data, safe and secure.

To archive all documents you need large capacity removable storage. If your data is less than 4.7 GB I heartily recommend a DVD writer. Less than $600 for the drive and $20 per rewritable disc means you can have a fast backup and one month archive for $1000. If your data goes beyond that size a tape drive is your best choice. Ranging from 8 to 100 GB per tape it’s the way to go. Check our tape technology comparison for more information. The built in backup software in any server OS can be used to archive your data files. If you want “disaster recovery”, which means you boot from a disk and reload your entire system from tape, you’ll need additional software. It’s a good idea with any backup media to take a copy home with you, just in case the building is destroyed.

The focus of this article is keeping user data safe and sound. Combine the few simple procedures and all your business data will be safe.

Tape Drive Technology Comparison

Scott VanderPloeg — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:08:42 +0000

Blast from the past: originally published November 15th 2000.

Backup should be a key component of any computer user’s routine. No matter what we do with our computer, there are files you don’t want to lose. The only way to guarantee they’ll always be there is to back them up.

For the day to day user or individual who is concerned with system failure or file loss the best method is RAID 1. This process takes two hard drives and mirrors the contents from one to the other. After the initial setup there is nothing required from the user to keep this going. The initial expense is around $100 for an IDE RAID PCI card, plus the cost of two hard drives, say Maxtor 20 GB drives retailing for $200 each. Total complete backup solution cost is $300 on top of the existing PC costs. For a look at such solutions see my previous RAID article.

For the network user RAID by itself is not the optimal backup solution. I still recommend RAID 1 or 5 solutions for the network file server, but augmenting this would be a tape backup system. Tape allows for proper archiving of files that can’t be handled by RAID. In my office a common scenario is this; someone comes to me and says the report they work on was screwed up yesterday, can I load the report from three days ago? Archival backup is the only way to handle this, as a site should be keeping between ten to thirty days of backups on hand for just such problems.

Tape is the preferred backup for archiving for one reason; it has the largest capacity. Optical storage is good and fast, but maxes out around 5 GB. There are quite a variety of tape technologies available: DAT DDS, DLT, Travan NS, AIT, Ultrium, SLR, plus brand specific types like Exabyte Mammoth, Onstream ADR and Ecrix VXA. Below is a chart that outlines the various technologies capacity, speed, and most importantly cost. I’ve stated the total cost to be the drive plus 20 tapes, giving the user a full work month of backups.

Tape Technology Comparison

	Compressed	Transfer	Drive	Media	Tapes for	Total
Format	Capacity (GB)	GB / Hour	Cost $	Cost $	20 days	Cost $
DDS-2	8	3.6	920	15	300	1220
DDS-3	24	7.2	1100	37	740	1840
DDS-4	40	21.6	1700	60	1200	2900
Travan NS8	8	4.2	300	55	1100	1400
Travan NS20	20	7.2	520	74	1480	2000
DLT-4	40	10.8	2850	140	2800	5650
DLT-5	80	43.2	6500	140	2800	9300
AIT-1	70	21.6	2425	125	2500	4925
AIT-2	100	56.6	5025	175	3500	8525
ADR	30	7.2	720	70	1400	2120
ADR	50	14.4	1200	85	1700	2900
SLR24	24	8.6	1650	70	1400	3050
SLR60	60	28.8	1700	100	2000	3700
SLR100	100	36	3250	130	2600	5850
Mammoth LT	28	7.2	1925	60	1200	3125
Mammoth	40	10.8	3500	95	1900	5400
Mammoth2	150	43.2	6750	135	2700	9450
VXA-1	66	21.6	1375	120	2400	3775

Notes:	Drives listed are internal SCSI models.
	Capacity is assuming a 2:1 or better compression ratio.
	Transfer rates are with compression.
	Prices are listed in Canadian dollars, compiled from various resellers.

A comment on the prices; it is noted that all costs listed are in Canadian dollars. This is a Canadian site, and proud of it. To determine cost in U.S. dollars, multiply the Canadian cost by 65% or calculate ( cost*0.65).

The big question to ask yourself is how large a tape drive to get. If you have twenty staff members, each will probably have 100 – 200 MB of files on the server. That equals 40 GB of data that needs to be backed up, so you’ll need a drive that holds that or more. Of course this is an extreme example; most people on my network have less than 20 MB on their network share. Again I recommend using the tape drive for backing up work files only; use RAID to back up the operating system and applications, which should be on a separate hard drive anyway.

It’s important to keep in mind that most tape solutions are SCSI based; while IEEE 1394 and USB are making promising gains, the server market is still SCSI. I love to recommend IDE RAID solutions because of the price, but IDE tape solutions max out at 20 GB with NS20 or 30 GB with ADR. One other point: external drives are available for about $300 more, and offer an easy way to add tape storage to your server.

Once you’ve decided to make the leap to tape backup, there’s one more important choice: autoloading. This is a tape drive that accepts a number of tapes and loads a new one each day. Very convenient, but like all things costs more. Here’s a quick comparison: an HP DDS-4 drive is $2000, while an HP DDS-4 drive autoloading 6 tapes costs $3200. That’s five days of data backup plus a cleaning tape. It’s all a question of budget and time; will you remember to put a new tape in each day?

Based on the needs of a small network of fifty people or less I can safely recommend a DAT DDS-4 drive. 40 GB is a lot of space for files, and DDS-4 is a lot cheaper with 20 tapes than AIT, DLT or Mammoth. The VXA and ADR technologies are interesting and seem priced right, but tied to one manufacturer. DAT drives are universally accepted, media is readily available and it’s a price performance killer.

All this talk of tape drives came because of my companies need to purchase a new drive; our Exabyte 8mm 8 GB drive died three years into service. Look for a review of the HP SureStore DAT40 External next month.

MailStore Home

Scott VanderPloeg — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:16:57 +0000

In the wake of the Gmail temporary loss of accounts a lot of tech sites are highlighting ways to back up your account. I like the suggestion of Hotmail accessing your Gmail through POP but that’s another cloud solution to maintain. Using Thunderbird and POP access is another good idea but you need to have it running to pick up your mail.

The best solution I’ve found is MailStore Home. It will backup and restore your email from basically any email client native or online and it’s free for personal use. Once backed up you can access and read it all, plus there’s a good search engine built in.

Installation and set up is straightforward: run the download. On launch you’re greeted with the screen above (click to enter your name as I have) and then select Archive Email. Next you pick your mail program, I selected Gmail, enter your credentials and let MailStore Home do its thing. You’ll want to have IMAP enabled for best performance if using Gmail. The other options are just as simple. After it’s initial run any email already archived is skipped on later runs and it gets the job done quickly.

Restoring is a nice feature and for IMAP applications it puts everything in a restore folder where you can then move around at your leisure. Backup to any media is again simple and straightforward; follow the prompts and you’re done.

MailStore Home is a one trick pony and does the job well. Free and easy are hard to beat.

adic FastStor2

Scott VanderPloeg — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 17:45:22 +0000

Blast from the past: originally published June 25th 2005.

Tape libraries are not new to the industry, but entry-level rackmount units can fit the small to medium enterprise bill. I recently had the opportunity to install and experience an adic FastStor 2 LTO eight slot 2U rackmount tape library.

We had been using a single tape drive that required swapping tapes daily. This was sometimes hard to remember but guaranteed a backup of critical files that were frequently accessed. As we added more storage it sometimes required swapping the tape out for daily backups, which is just plain ugly. Since we needed a new tape drive to fit the additional storage, why not get a tape library and have it handle tapes for a week at a time.

ADIC ( they mix capitals and all lower case on the website and on equipment ) makes a wide range of tape and backup hardware, but the FastStor 2 is the introductory tape library. It’s available with a LTO-1, LTO-2 or SDLT320 tape drive; everything else remains the same. We went with the LTO-2 for a maximum storage capacity of 3.2 TB; an HP drive was installed ( see photos ).

Unpacking and installing allowed me to examine the library. Very simple design: tape door and four button LCD panel on the front, two 68 pin high density SCSI connectors and a power switch on the rear. It required active termination so I hooked it up and powered the unit on. I went through the simple and effective menu to load tapes; at that point the door slides open and you insert the tape. Otherwise the door stays closed, everything safe and sound within.

Unfortunately there was some grinding as I loaded the tape in, and everything stopped working. A quick call revealed something must be off track, so I had the opportunity to crack the case and look inside. A few screws later the top was off and I was able to see how it worked and grab the photos above.

The drive sits in the center and the eight tapes are held in hard plastic braces that move around on a rubber belt. When it reaches the desired tape a small arm brings it out of the brace and into the tape drive. Ejection is handled in reverse; all in all a simple solution. Cooling for the drive is provided by two fans: one behind the drive pushing out the bottom and one at the rear. It appeared that one of the tape braces had come off the track in shipping, so I put it back on and we were back in business.

Performance was within expected parameters for a LTO-2 drive; as this library can accommodate three different drives the mechanics stay the same. We use Veritas Backup Exec which has additional functionality for libraries, such as locking the door and cataloging tapes based on bar code. Of course this requires a bar code reader, which we installed at the rear of the unit. It’s a matter of removing a plate on the rear, hooking the power up and screwing the reader into the same holes as the plate used.

All in all a good solution for those needing additional storage or only wanting to change tapes once a week.

Macrium Reflect Free Edition

Scott VanderPloeg — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:41:52 +0000

Setting up a PC for a friend and they needed some sort of backup. My first thought is always Windows Home Server but this was a single PC and the extra cost couldn’t be justified. I turned again to Macrium Reflect Free Edition: the user had an older 200 GB Maxtor external USB hard drive that would hold the backup files. To be fair I first tried Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 Free Edition and ToDo Backup but neither one did exactly what I wanted: a backup that could be scheduled daily and could be recovered from a bootable media for free. My previous experience with Reflect paid off as I configured the automatic backup and used my ForFiles configuration to limit the number of backups.

The free edition allows the use of the integrated Linux boot CD: the premium paid version lets you use a BartPE disc with your own drivers for RAID or storage adapters. Great tutorial available from Macrium. This was a one hard drive system so the free version was fine. I created a full backup and the restore disc, then pulled the working hard drive and replaced it with a new unpartitioned drive that was the same size. It booted nicely, asked for the backup location, asked where to restore and started to restore. A nice little feature is that the CD is ejected when the restore process starts so the system doesn’t boot back into this environment and makes the user aware to remove it. The restore got so far and then failed with an error insufficient space. I then partitioned the drive and tried again but with the same error. Formatted and tried again: same thing.

A backup program that won’t let me restore is not very useful. I removed the hard drive and replaced it with another and started the restore process again. This time everything worked well. I then removed the partition and tried again: success. For some reason my first replacement hard drive wasn’t liked by Reflect; no real explanation here.

Macrium Reflect Free Edition is a solid backup job as long as you can live with its limitations: no incremental or differential backups, no custom drivers for restoring, no automatic deletion or management of backup files. So far these limitations haven’t hindered my two installations.

Steam backups

Scott VanderPloeg — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:51:22 +0000

Steam is a great service: log in on any PC and play the games you’ve paid for. The only downside is the download; modern games are between one and five gigabytes, which makes for a long download. Or after you reformat your system and go to start playing games but have to wait a day for Steam to download them all again.

Luckily steam has a backup feature: right click on your game in the Steam Games menu and select “backup games files”.

You’ll be prompted for a location: I’m saving my backups to a network share. Next you’ll be prompted how to save the backups: in CD size, DVD size or custom.

Since I’m saving to a network share I’m not concerned about file size and writing to an optical media so I select custom and chose 10 GB so there would be only one compressed file.

That’s about it: if you want to install it somewhere else or are reinstalling after a hard drive format or upgrade just double click on the steambackup.exe file and it will install and add itself to Steam. I’ve found games always require an update on an install from backup but that could just be me.

Mozy Online Backup

Scott VanderPloeg — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:50:58 +0000

If you don’t back up your files at some point you will lose them. We rely on mechanical storage to keep our information and inevitably it will fail. People used to say it didn’t matter since it was only a resumé or invitation on a home PC: that’s changed since we buy our books and music online and take our photos and videos digitally.

A backup is a copy of your files somewhere else: CD or DVD, other PC, Windows Home Server, or in this case online. There are some excellent free services available and today we’re looking at Mozy: it offers free and paid options. We’re looking at the 2 GB free option today.

Installation is very straightforward, as is everything about Mozy: it’s meant for any and every computer user. You can pick your files to back up by category: Favorites, Spreadsheets, Music, or by folder and file. Mozy runs as a 58 MB service; once you pick your files you schedule the backup and that’s it. Speed is of course based on your internet connection, but the first backup is the only time killer since Mozy will only backup the changes made to your files. It’s simple and effective, plus it requires no intervention from the end-user once set up, this eliminating the biggest problem with backups in general, that of user laziness.

To restore files you open the tray application and select your files, either by category or file and folder. Again very simple and direct; depending on how many files you’re restoring it could take a while as you’re limited by your internet connection speed. Therein lies the issue with all cloud based backup and why I recommend it for personal use only; you can’t wait two days for your business files to restore. Free online storage does work well for a secondary or tertiary backup of key files since you can’t beat the price.

I’ve been using Mozy for a few years and those sharp-eyed readers will see my quota is 2.5 GB: that’s because I’ve referred two friends who signed up. If they use my referral code I get an additional 250 MB. Between now and January 10th anyone who signs up using my referral code will get an additional 500 MB, as will I. It’s free to use so why not give it a try.

Windows Home Server as SOHO backup

Scott VanderPloeg — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:33:30 +0000

I’ve gushed extensively about the wonder that is Windows Home Server. I recently gave Windows Small Business Server 2008 a spin to check it’s backup handling but it left me wanting: no current Windows platform backup program gets as much done at such a low cost as Windows Home Server.

For the small business backup is key. You probably have file sharing set up on your local file server and nightly backups of that data, most likely to a removable hard drive or NAS device. You may even have a dedicated backup application that backs up your file server and desktop PCs to some network storage or tape. Let me explain why Windows Home Server (WHS) should be implemented.

WHS has three key items as part of it’s backup that make it a critical small business tool: lets go through them. First and foremost it includes a software agent that backs up desktop PCs and Windows servers: that’s right, install the agent and it will back up Microsoft’s line of server products including SBS, Exchange, SharePoint, etc. You just need a unique login for each server, not just administrator since that’s taken by WHS. Second it has a unique method of saving files: once a copy of the file is on the WHS it places a pointer to that file for all other backups, so one backup of XP Professional or six will take the same amount of storage space for system files. In big companies the IT team can re-image your PC and get the apps reinstalled, but for a small company it’s so much easier to boot from a CD and reload last night’s complete backup of your PC. Third it shares files amongst it’s storage pool of hard drives in a software type of RAID that is very efficient: WHS duplicates files across multiple hard drives so in the event of a drive failure your data is safe.

The other key advantage of WHS is cost: about $140 gets you the software product that will accept up to ten clients. Yes ten clients is a limitation for this option of backup server, but you can run multiple instances of Windows Home Server: they each need a unique name and you’d have to make sure the client software pointed to the right WHS system. Back to cost: WHS is light on system requirements so you could repurpose older hardware to fit the bill, or for under $600 you could pick up a complete system with WHS already installed.

External Hard Drive Handling

Scott VanderPloeg — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:31:25 +0000

There are two basic types of external hard drives for sale: those that use 3.5″ hard drives and those that use 2.5″ hard drives. The 3.5″ units typically have an external power supply, multiple connection types (USB, eSATA, Firewire) and have some sort of stand to keep them in position. The 2.5″ units have no external power connections and normally connect via USB.

The important item here is that the 3.5″ units are designed to remain stationary while the 2.5″ units are designed to be mobile. It’s this alone that should be the biggest determining factor when purchasing: is the external drive to be moved ever. If it will never move then get the cheaper, larger capacity unit that utilizes a 3.5″ desktop hard drive. If at any point the drive is to be moved (weekly backups, extending laptop storage, what have you) then get the portable unit that utilizes a laptop 2.5″ hard drive.

Mobile or laptop hard drives are designed to move the write heads off the platter if it detects a sudden drop or rapid movement. They’re designed to be moved and tussled about so it can handle being in your briefcase for the week.

Contrast that to the desktop hard drive, which is designed to be stationary and only work that way. If you’re feeling scientific and dangerously carefree start copying a file to your external 3.5″ unit and then push it over: you’ll end up with most likely a dead drive. I remember using the PARK command in DOS when powering off a PC but it’s not available in XP…