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I run Veeam B&R 11 on a Windows server but at the moment it is just making some physical backups of a number of critical Windows hosts and a few EXT4 volumes on Linux hosts.

The majority of our data (give or take 125TB) is hosted on a SAN (mirrored) exposed as EXT4 volumes via iSCSI on a Linux server.

As an extra level of backup, I want to start backing up this data on a regular basis with Veeam B&R 11 onto a new suitable storage server with sufficient Direct-Attached Storage or some kind of NAS unit, preferably with this storage configured as a hardened Linux repository in Veeam.

This storage server would be in a different location to the SAN, but connected over a 10GBE link.

Has anyone got some advice on what would be a good hardware solution for this Linux-based hardened repo?

Should I be looking at one of the larger Synology NAS units with sufficient capacity (not sure if this can be used with Veeam as a Linux repo or would a dedicated server full of storage be a better option. Something along the lines of the Supermicro storage server range for example. 

Thanks for any advice.

 

 



 

Hi!

 

I would strongly steer you away from NAS’, especially using SMB/NFS protocols to access them, iSCSI can be okay but I disable the write cache on them as well to be safe when I have to work with them.

 

There are some great servers that support a lot of storage, for something that size you could leverage something like a Dell R750xs or Dell R740xd/R740xd2. You can then leverage XFS with Linux or ReFS with Windows for fast clone for more efficient storage of GFS backups too!

 

If you’ve got more questions or information to scope this better then let us know!

If you get the right kind of NAS it can work but looking at a server as @MicoolPaul mentioned might be the better choice.  If you are not in to Dell then HPE has some Apollo servers as well that can have lots of local storage in them.  We use them for various Veeam servers, etc. and they work very well.

@Chris.Childerhose  I have never touched an HPE Apollo, I follow the thread with extreme interest.

@Chris.Childerhose  I have never touched an HPE Apollo, I follow the thread with extreme interest.

If you Google the HPE Apollo you will see tons of data on it even in the forums too as recommended by Gostev. :wink:

I am using several Dell R740/740XD server for this and they are working really good.

We usually use Supermicro servers and they have a good range of what they class as “storage servers” with plenty of capacity and cpu etc options.

Do I need any kind of RAID features for a storage server like we’re looking for as disks aren’t infallible (as I’ve discovered with our SAN) and need replacing occassionally? Do DAS devices usually have RAID features or am I overthinking?

Thanks again for the advice so far...

 

Agree, do not use any affordable NAS-appliances! They are not so performant, less reliable and less secure! I always recommend a DAS-host (if you name it this way). Provide capacity by local disks. Like Chris, I have had very good experiences with it HPE Apollo server.

@Chris.Childerhose  I have never touched an HPE Apollo, I follow the thread with extreme interest.

If you Google the HPE Apollo you will see tons of data on it even in the forums too as recommended by Gostev. :wink:

Yep, but as sysadmin it doesn't have the same feeling of touching it :wink:

Both the Dell and HPE options look interesting but how do they deal with a failed drive? Do they have some kind of RAID technology that allows us to hot-swap out a failed storage drive?

Both the Dell and HPE options look interesting but how do they deal with a failed drive? Do they have some kind of RAID technology that allows us to hot-swap out a failed storage drive?


Th Dell server can be configured with RAID.

And it depends on your support contract how fast a failed drive will be exchanged...

Both the Dell and HPE options look interesting but how do they deal with a failed drive? Do they have some kind of RAID technology that allows us to hot-swap out a failed storage drive?


Th Dell server can be configured with RAID.

And it depends on your support contract how fast a failed drive will be exchanged...

This, Dell tend to offer 4 hour or next business day as options for hard drive replacements, I’m sure HPE offer similar if not the same. They’ve supported hot-swap for the failed disks for a while. You’d just need to determine which level of RAID would be suitable for your needs such as RAID60 as the level you use will impact normal performance, rebuild performance & rebuild speed for the degraded RAID array.

Both the Dell and HPE options look interesting but how do they deal with a failed drive? Do they have some kind of RAID technology that allows us to hot-swap out a failed storage drive?


Th Dell server can be configured with RAID.

And it depends on your support contract how fast a failed drive will be exchanged...

This, Dell tend to offer 4 hour or next business day as options for hard drive replacements, I’m sure HPE offer similar if not the same. They’ve supported hot-swap for the failed disks for a while. You’d just need to determine which level of RAID would be suitable for your needs such as RAID60 as the level you use will impact normal performance, rebuild performance & rebuild speed for the degraded RAID array.

As @MicoolPaul says, depends on support contract you deal with vendor. Basic HPE is next-business day, but offer more fast way. In addition to choosing the right RAID for your needs, it is also super important to check the characteristics and performance of the RAID controller.

There is no "right answer", you need to do an assessment of the customer's needs / budget.

Bye!

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