Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?
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OK, Most of us want as much performance as we can get out of production systems within our requirement and budgets. But what about backups?
I'm guessing for must of us the performance of a single drive for backup is probably adequate.
I am looking at the following two setups for a backup destination - what are you thoughts on either and why?
Option 1
Synology 4 bay DS416 NAS
WD 4 TB Red drives (x4)
Total : $949.52
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016EWTC7E/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EHBERSE/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DEROption A
Synology 2 bay DS216 NAS
WD 8 TB Red drives (x2)
Total: $856
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BYLY4DM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0185ZU0O2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DERBoth options give the same amount of usable space (8 TB). Option 1 has a faster processor and dual ethernet ports.
In my case, I can schedule backups to take place one after another install all at once.
*note - it was recommended that I say that the 4 drive NAS will use RAID 10, and the 2 drive NAS will use RAID 1.
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All comes down to your speed needs. Is the extra $100 a good price for the extra speed? What does the extra speed mean to your business?
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@scottalanmiller said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
All comes down to your speed needs. Is the extra $100 a good price for the extra speed? What does the extra speed mean to your business?
I find these questions hard to answer for SOHO/SMB.
I guess your (@scottalanmiller) answer is ... if you don't know, you probably don't need it.
My feeling is that slower speeds are OK for backups. Unless you are definitely sure (and I would think only larger companies would be) you need the speed, you probably are OK without it.
If you ever needed a "fast" backup, you could target it to a local drive or a network target with better speed, perhaps. (Again, situation depending.)
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Quantity of data to backup
Time slot (in hours) backups require
Add in "wiggle room" as you see fit (ie, backup done in 2/3 of the timeslot to allow for growth / dumb shit)
Select appropriate backup flavor combination as per the above
Success.
Edit: useful tool
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@MattSpeller said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
Quantity of data to backup
Time slot (in hours) backups require
Add in "wiggle room" as you see fit (ie, backup done in 2/3 of the timeslot to allow for growth / dumb shit)
Select appropriate backup flavor combination as per the above
Success.
Edit: useful tool
Right, but say your backup takes 4 hours, and you have 8. WOuld you ever pay for it to be "faster", and for what/why?
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@BRRABill said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
@MattSpeller said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
Quantity of data to backup
Time slot (in hours) backups require
Add in "wiggle room" as you see fit (ie, backup done in 2/3 of the timeslot to allow for growth / dumb shit)
Select appropriate backup flavor combination as per the above
Success.
Edit: useful tool
Right, but say your backup takes 4 hours, and you have 8. WOuld you ever pay for it to be "faster", and for what/why?
well... as per the above, if I thought that 1/2 my time window was acceptable, then no. If 1/2 my time window was unacceptably slow, then yes.
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@BRRABill said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
WOuld you ever pay for it to be "faster", and for what/why?
Hell yes there are times when it matters a lot. I used to work for a manufacturing company that only had a 4h gap between shifts. Needless to say there was some serious urgency to slam backups through the network.
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@MattSpeller said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
@BRRABill said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
WOuld you ever pay for it to be "faster", and for what/why?
Hell yes there are times when it matters a lot. I used to work for a manufacturing company that only had a 4h gap between shifts. Needless to say there was some serious urgency to slam backups through the network.
But there you have a need.
You NEED it to be done in 4hr or less.
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@BRRABill said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
@MattSpeller said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
@BRRABill said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
WOuld you ever pay for it to be "faster", and for what/why?
Hell yes there are times when it matters a lot. I used to work for a manufacturing company that only had a 4h gap between shifts. Needless to say there was some serious urgency to slam backups through the network.
But there you have a need.
You NEED it to be done in 4hr or less.
Right.... so I paid for a solution that did it in 2h.
I don't get what you're asking about?
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@BRRABill said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
@MattSpeller said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
Quantity of data to backup
Time slot (in hours) backups require
Add in "wiggle room" as you see fit (ie, backup done in 2/3 of the timeslot to allow for growth / dumb shit)
Select appropriate backup flavor combination as per the above
Success.
Edit: useful tool
Right, but say your backup takes 4 hours, and you have 8. WOuld you ever pay for it to be "faster", and for what/why?
Not likely, only if there was a clear business gain from lowering backup time and if that benefit was greater than the cost to do so.
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@MattSpeller said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
@BRRABill said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
@MattSpeller said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
Quantity of data to backup
Time slot (in hours) backups require
Add in "wiggle room" as you see fit (ie, backup done in 2/3 of the timeslot to allow for growth / dumb shit)
Select appropriate backup flavor combination as per the above
Success.
Edit: useful tool
Right, but say your backup takes 4 hours, and you have 8. WOuld you ever pay for it to be "faster", and for what/why?
well... as per the above, if I thought that 1/2 my time window was acceptable, then no. If 1/2 my time window was unacceptably slow, then yes.
Except if half the time window was acceptable, then that wasn't the time window. THe window itself tells you what is acceptable.
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@MattSpeller said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
@BRRABill said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
WOuld you ever pay for it to be "faster", and for what/why?
Hell yes there are times when it matters a lot. I used to work for a manufacturing company that only had a 4h gap between shifts. Needless to say there was some serious urgency to slam backups through the network.
But then the windows was different.
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@scottalanmiller said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
@MattSpeller said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
@BRRABill said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
@MattSpeller said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
Quantity of data to backup
Time slot (in hours) backups require
Add in "wiggle room" as you see fit (ie, backup done in 2/3 of the timeslot to allow for growth / dumb shit)
Select appropriate backup flavor combination as per the above
Success.
Edit: useful tool
Right, but say your backup takes 4 hours, and you have 8. WOuld you ever pay for it to be "faster", and for what/why?
well... as per the above, if I thought that 1/2 my time window was acceptable, then no. If 1/2 my time window was unacceptably slow, then yes.
Except if half the time window was acceptable, then that wasn't the time window. THe window itself tells you what is acceptable.
Right, it is what it is.
And as you always say, never buy for the future.
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@scottalanmiller said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
All comes down to your speed needs. Is the extra $100 a good price for the extra speed? What does the extra speed mean to your business?
I comes down to what you are backing up, and as you said, the needs of the business.
If you are backing up a lot of data, and it goes too slow, the run time may leak into business hours, and it'll put some burden on your network and productions servers, slowing it down and causing a mess for the users who need to work. It could also delay "domino effect" backups, causing too many to happen at once, or for backups to be skipped entirely... but that depends on the backup software too.
On the other hand, if you are backing up something that requires a lot of retention, snapshots, frequency, etc... you'll need to have available space for that, and also I can see how speed fits in.
It's always going to depend heavily on the businesses needs, and it will be very different from place to place. Some larger businesses may have lighter requirements than a much smaller one.
If the extra speed of the backup process has no effect at all on the business, then is it really worth the extra money? If the extra speed will have actual positive impact on the business, then it may be worth it.
You also need to consider future growth, at least near-future growth. And, what happens if you fill it up?
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So @BRRABill did you get your answer from this post?
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@Dashrender said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
So @BRRABill did you get your answer from this post?
Yes, go with as slow as your business supports.
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OK so this thread has covered the backup window - what about the recovery window?
Sure you have 8 hours to backup, but is your company OK with 8+ hours for recovery?
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@Dashrender said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
OK so this thread has covered the backup window - what about the recovery window?
Sure you have 8 hours to backup, but is your company OK with 8+ hours for recovery?
Excellent point. Recovery time is more important than backup time imho.
It can help a lot to plan backups by starting with recovery.
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@Tim_G said
It can help a lot to plan backups by starting with recovery.
Right, and this has been discussed here many times in that if you have important data, it probably shouldn't be taking 8 hours to restore it all.
Perhaps a full restore is not the optimal way to restore in the case of a major issue.
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@BRRABill said in Backups - how much does backup performance matter to you?:
@Tim_G said
It can help a lot to plan backups by starting with recovery.
Right, and this has been discussed here many times in that if you have important data, it probably shouldn't be taking 8 hours to restore it all.
Perhaps a full restore is not the optimal way to restore in the case of a major issue.
if you loose a all your storage you might not have any choice. We are talking about worst case here.
