Offsite back up solution needed

[nzpli]

I mucked up - I bought another new server with 2 HD's (yeah I know I should be got a 3rd) from ThePlanet.com and did not think I would need cpanel backup because the second HD is a Raid HD. Duh !!

I have their evault backup, which is fine for recovering individual files, but I know I am going to need the ability to perform a full account backup at some time when either we or our client mucks up something.

I need to be able to make full client backups like I have with our 2 other servers - one click recovery of an account including mail and mysql db's from a previous nightly backup

Theplanet cannot offer a solution other than purchasing another server (after I have had the server hardened by ConfigServer, with their security and mailscanner solution and transfering over 70 accounts so far. - so I dont want to go there, and our budget does stretch to another new server anyway.

I have read abit about R1Soft, but dont understand it really. I am really looking for some hosting space where I can put the backups, without buying another server

Can anyone made any suggestions where I can go. I am not a programmer or an accomplished server admin, so a plain language reply is good for me

cheers
Peter

[serversignature]

i have used bqbackup, they use - Rsync technology for Daily backup.

[nzpli]

i have used bqbackup, they use - Rsync technology for Daily backup.

thank you - I have written to them

regards

Peter

[meeven]

I have been using bqbackup as an additional back up service since 3 years. Works well.

From what I have been able to glean, though, you want to set it up to use RDiff rather than Rsync. With rsync, you cannot get dated backups. I was burned once when my hosting provider did not have an older backup of an account which had been compromised and was hosting malware. The rsync backup also had the most recent backup which contained the malware files. Had I used Rdiff, I would have been able to go back in time to a cleaner backup and use that to restore.

Fortunately, the client had a cleaner backup and I didn't end up looking silly.

There could be some performance issues with RDiff, but the advantages are worth it if the configuration is done carefully.

[nzpli]

I have been using bqbackup as an additional back up service since 3 years. Works well.

From what I have been able to glean, though, you want to set it up to use RDiff rather than Rsync. With rsync, you cannot get dated backups. I was burned once when my hosting provider did not have an older backup of an account which had been compromised and was hosting malware. The rsync backup also had the most recent backup which contained the malware files. Had I used Rdiff, I would have been able to go back in time to a cleaner backup and use that to restore.

Fortunately, the client had a cleaner backup and I didn't end up looking silly.

There could be some performance issues with RDiff, but the advantages are worth it if the configuration is done carefully.

Thank you - I am hoping to set it up exactly as for Cpanel backups with 7 daily backups, 4 weekly backups and 1 monthly

Will see how we progress - Scott has been in touch and I have paid the money

cheers
Peter

[Spiral]

I mucked up - I bought another new server with 2 HD's (yeah I know I should be got a 3rd) from ThePlanet.com and did not think I would need cpanel backup because the second HD is a Raid HD. Duh !!

If you already got RAID redundancy, why not just create a separate partition in your existing drive(s) and store your backups there?

Theplanet cannot offer a solution other than purchasing another server (after I have had the server hardened by ConfigServer, with their security and mailscanner solution and transfering over 70 accounts so far. - so I dont want to go there, and our budget does stretch to another new server anyway.

Well there's your problem! Getting ConfigServer to harden your server!

Just kidding ...

Actually, although technically competition Chirpy is one of the very few people outside myself who I would have confidence in enough to harden a server at least half adequately and coming from me, that is very high praise indeed.

Actually my real point of commenting on the above quote is to mention that The Planet also offers NAS backups (network backup setup to operate as a mounted partition on your server) and I know this first hand as several of my clients are using that service from them.

[nzpli]

If you already got RAID redundancy, why not just create a separate partition in your existing drive(s) and store your backups there?


Well there's your problem! Getting ConfigServer to harden your server!

Just kidding ...

Actually, although technically competition Chirpy is one of the very few people outside myself who I would have confidence in enough to harden a server at least half adequately and coming from me, that is very high praise indeed.

Actually my real point of commenting on the above quote is to mention that The Planet also offers NAS backups (network backup setup to operate as a mounted partition on your server) and I know this first hand as several of my clients are using that service from them.

Thanks for your valuable advice too Spiral

I am happy with what has been achieved today, which may be a bit of an overkill, as someone says you can't have too many backus

I have gone aboard with bqbackup and set up an account. I am backing up the whole server daily with Rsync into one part of the account and set up CPanel backups in another part with daily, weekly and monthly retentions.

Whilst one cannot just click a button in whm to recover a back up after cpanel creates the backups, is pretty easy to download the .tar.gz and recover the whole backup including db's from a previous time

The Planet did not talk to me about NAS backups. Whilst I spent some time with them trying to find a satisfactory solution the NAS backup was not mentioned, and at the end of the day it was either buy a backup server $209, or replace the new server with one with 3 bays, loosing for me both a lot of set up time and money.

If anyone in the future wants to contact me about the actual results of using what if did do, I will be happy to pass on my honest opinion. The use of CPanel backup has not been encouraged in the reading I have done, but for me, it appears to be the easiest, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

Thanks to all for suggestions. They were most appreciated

cheers
Peter

[david-r1soft]

I have read abit about R1Soft, but dont understand it really. I am really looking for some hosting space where I can put the backups, without buying another server

R1Soft is asynchronous replication software. What that means is it takes one initial replica (full backup) that takes a long time. Then after that it performs asynchronous replications which usually can do in minutes what cpanel backup or rsync or evault take hours to complete. It will also help reduce the impact of the backup process on your server's load.

The best way to learn about CDP quickly is to contact R1Soft and schedule a demo.

You can also use the R1Soft CPanel plugin to give your hosting accounts a new value-add... self-service restore.
R1Soft - CDP for Hosting Control Panels - Control Panel Integration - CPanel - Plesk - Ensim*::*R1Soft


Yes with R1Soft you need either a physical server dedicated as a backup repository OR an account on an R1Soft CDP Server from a service provider.

We have a new product in Alpha-testing called CDP 3 Standard Edition that is a simple CDP solution that does not require an extra server to use and can store high performance replicas of your data on a second hard disk or network attached storage like CIFS (Samba) or NFS.

Keep your eye on R1Soft for the public Beta of CDP 3 Standard Edition later this fall... you can try it them for free and do not need a second server.

If you already got RAID redundancy, why not just create a separate partition in your existing drive(s) and store your backups there?

This is better than no backups at all. Be very careful please. If your RAID array fails you will loose your backups also.

[hlederhaas]

Hello David,

Thank you, i allready in test with cdp, very good product!

the only thing, i also must to a cpanel tar backup for a account restore.

is there a plan that cdp 3 will improve this? cpanel backup takes about 9 hours to backup all accounts!

[jwooton]

For anyone who is still looking for a good offsite backup provider...

www.datastorageunit.com

Rsync, SFTP, SSH...

Prices are very competitive. Starting at 2.99 a month for 100 GB's of storage.

[dwykofka]

Those DSU guys run a pretty inexpensive service but keep in mind it's only 1MB outbound which means retrieving backups takes forever.