October 23, 2002 at 10:42 pm
Hi,
Could anyone give me some ideas/advice on the best way to do with backup which will be kept for long time, such as for 10 years (for legal purposes).
I've never dealt with this situation. Maybe some of you could advice me some tips and how to deal with any hassle which can occur in the future. Now, I just concern about storage media & recovery time (can't think anything else).
Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in Advance.
October 24, 2002 at 4:36 am
Good question and Im interested to see what ideas readers have on this as well. Seems like in 10 years the media format may be junk so you'd have be sure to preserve at least one drive, then there is the issue of whether the media will still be viable after that long.
Andy
October 24, 2002 at 5:01 am
In that situation I wuld export the data per year into text files (this makes sure can be recovered in case software version outdates other modes).
Depending on the size of the data then you may want to consider 2 options for long duration stores.
Note: you may want to purchase a compression program that you can save with the data to make as small as possible but most solutions right now are cheap and should work well.
1 if under 780MB use CDR (800mb disk but keep in mind the TOC takes space too and it is never wise to burn to the edge) and burn the data off to that, I do suggest make duplicate copies and store in different locations for safety. You can span these if needed by either compressing with an app that supports making spans or by outputing the data into smaller divisions.
If over 780MB then consider using DVD-R media this will give you 4.5 GB on most disks and will increase as things go.
Now as for the long term possiblity that one or both may go away keep an extra drive or two around you can store until that timeframe need ends or rolls to the next media version.
Otherwise and I am suprised that if legal this has not been made a madatory thing. You should have a paper copy of everything stored in at least two facilities off site and preferably in different cities as far apart as possible. This guaranatees the data is recoverable and takes into account possible war destroying a location.
And as for storage locations for long term documentation check out http://www.ironmountain.com/ this place is self-contained and virtually indestructable, but this gives you an idea of the etreme some facilities go to, to protect your data.
"Don't roll your eyes at me. I will tape them in place." (Teacher on Boston Public)
October 30, 2002 at 3:36 am
Sorry for taking so long to reply.
In my opinion, Transferring Data to CDR or DVDR until a timeframe ends has a bit of risk. I've a little doubt especially about the drive & CD durability for storing in a long term.
Anyway, I'm intrested in off site backup. I'll consider to try this service.
Thanks for your help guys
BTW, any other ideas?
October 30, 2002 at 6:35 am
Since this is a legal issue and you are planning on saving offsite. I would look into the possibility of having a remote database and mirroring the data to it. Find out how much data (timewise) your current system holds and design the mirror system based on that. Have a tape backup system on it to store backup files. This will enable you to do long-term backups and restore the data as needed. Then if you do an upgrade, you can restore a tape or tapes to the mirror site and upgrade the data and then resave it back to tape. Or if cost isn't an issue (yeah right-when is cost never an issue), you could purchase extra hard-drives. Create one drive for the database and another for backups....when the backup drive gets full, remove it for storage and put in another one.
-Bill
October 31, 2002 at 2:35 am
Good Ideas SQLBill, Besides backing up the database off site, I'll also consider to mirror the database to another server for our archive. I'll prefer to use hard drive instead of tape.
Anyway, what's the right way to mirror the database which size is considerably big and also growing fast?
October 31, 2002 at 11:54 am
for 10 plus years? Not sure hard disk is more reliable than tape.
If you need it? Multiple copies. CDR/DVD and tape. Course, keep in mind, what's the penalty for it not working in 9 years?
For that matter, the reliable "paper" backup (print out your tables) has worked for many companies for longer than 10 years. 🙂
Steve Jones
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