Adding a second Safety PC

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   Hello, 

I currently have several customers backing up to one backup computer ‘A’. The data is stored on a dedicated hard drive ‘d’.

I would like to introduce a second backup computer ‘B’ to increase the Backup Safety to 2.

I need to avoid having customers backup their entire data again, over the internet, to ‘B’.

I also need to avoid having to revisit each customer to run a manual export to a USB drive and import to B.

A and B will remain on the same LAN whist I carryout this process (ports set as required).

1. After setting up a new Account/Backup Location on B and modifying the customer’s settings as required, is it possible to just manually copy the customer’s folders from A to B?

2. Do I need to make use of the Export / Import facility to do this properly? I tried with a test account but only a third of the data would export.

3. Does this mean that once all data is on both machines the amount of data the customers uploads henceforth is doubled?

4. Does the customer backup to A first then B or to both simultaneously?

5. Is it possible to channel the flow of data is anyway. I.E. Customer to A, then A to B? 

Regards
Paul

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Amber Computers Members Profile Find Members Posts Ultra Buddy Joined: 24/June/2011 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 73	Post Options Post Reply Quote Amber Computers Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Adding a second Safety PC Posted: 29/April/2012 at 3:25pm
	Hello, I currently have several customers backing up to one backup computer ‘A’. The data is stored on a dedicated hard drive ‘d’. I would like to introduce a second backup computer ‘B’ to increase the Backup Safety to 2. I need to avoid having customers backup their entire data again, over the internet, to ‘B’. I also need to avoid having to revisit each customer to run a manual export to a USB drive and import to B. A and B will remain on the same LAN whist I carryout this process (ports set as required). 1. After setting up a new Account/Backup Location on B and modifying the customer’s settings as required, is it possible to just manually copy the customer’s folders from A to B? 2. Do I need to make use of the Export / Import facility to do this properly? I tried with a test account but only a third of the data would export. 3. Does this mean that once all data is on both machines the amount of data the customers uploads henceforth is doubled? 4. Does the customer backup to A first then B or to both simultaneously? 5. Is it possible to channel the flow of data is anyway. I.E. Customer to A, then A to B? Regards Paul

John Members Profile Find Members Posts Visit Members Homepage Admin Group Head of development Joined: 02/May/2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 203	Post Options Post Reply Quote John Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 30/April/2012 at 6:28pm
	Hmm good question. There is no way to do this easily. Just one question: are A and B ultimately going to be located at the same place? If they're not then I can see why you want to do this (as you get extra offsite redundancy). If they ARE at the same place, then I'm not sure what the point is. If you were really just after redundancy that wasn't offsite, then it's much better to just use RAID or mirroring or folder syncing or something. (Software RAID is actually easy on Windows 7 - I do this on my home server). I'm going to assume that what you're talking about is having two servers at different locations. So, your specific questions: 1. Maybe... possibly. You'd have to certainly copy the "OtherPeoplesFiles" folder and definitely some parts of the database (buddybackup.db) (but leaving everything else unchanged). I have never tried this and it might work. Might be worth experimenting. Be careful though, as if you get it wrong you could make your buddies think their backups don't exist any more. 2. Uhhh good question. I'm honestly not sure if you can do this (i.e. export C's data from A to B). This wasn't the intent, but again it might just work... 3. Yes - no way around this 4. It round robins between them. It should prioritise less well backed up files first. 5. No this isn't possible unfortunately. John

Amber Computers Members Profile Find Members Posts Ultra Buddy Joined: 24/June/2011 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 73	Post Options Post Reply Quote Amber Computers Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 05/May/2012 at 7:54pm
	Hello, Yes ultimately A & B will be in two separate locations for extra offsite redundancy. Eventually I need to have a procedure in place so if in worst case A or B gets stolen, it can be replaced quickly without the need for customers to re-upload all their data. If BB could develop such a facility, this would be a great benefit. Currently the amount of data stored by my customers is small, so I could add a second safety PC without too much trouble, but if 100Gb turns into 1000Gb this is a bigger problem, especially with bandwidth. I will need to obtain a better understanding of how BB works so I can implement an appropriate backup strategy. What is the relationship between the BB database and the "OtherPeoplesFiles’ folder? I.e. if I need to replace a hard drive that contained the BB database and I restore it from a pervious days backup (made using Acronis for example) do I need to restore the "OtherPeoplesFiles’ folder to the previous day as well and vice versa? I will put together a test setup so hopefully with your help I can experiment, but this will take a while as I need to get B up and running first. Regards Paul