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8694
October 5th, 2004 05:00
PV132T Question - How do I set this up?
I'm currently running two PowerVault NAS's, one 725N and one 775N. I'm using a PV122T right now, and it's simply taking way too long to do a full backup of the amount of data we have on these NAS's. It's approaching 450GB. The PV122T can backup about 10GB/hr right now.
I've been looking at the PV132T with 2 LTO-2 tape drives. I'm currently using Dell 5224 gigabit switches in the office, but I have a feeling that running the two drives at once will max out the bandwidth of the switches.
Is the Fibre interface recommended for my situation, and beyond the Fibre PV132T, what else would I need to purchase to have a speedy backup solution?
TIA,
~nt~
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dell-richard g
605 Posts
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October 5th, 2004 22:00
This will depend on how many backup servers you have. The FC bridge on the PV132T is good if you want to have many servers share the same PV132T. If you only have one backup server, the FC bridge can help you alot, but it may not be needed.
1. If you just have one backup server, consider using a dedicated network just for tape backup. A 1Gbps adapter should be able to sustain two backup streams.
If you need to use fiber channel for tape, you could install a separate FC HBA, or use the existing ones installed in your system.
Bottomline, you need to map out your topology to see where all your data resides. If most of the data resides on one server, than you could connect the 132T directly to a SCSI adapter and back up from that server. The other servers could be backed up over the LAN via a dedicated network.
neotokyo2015
22 Posts
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October 5th, 2004 22:00
Thanks Richard.
Those two servers I mentioned above are both equipped with two gigabit adapters each and have roughly 300GB and 500GB of data storage each.
So would the best scenario be:
1) Put the 64-bit PCI adapter into a dedicated machine (I have an extra PowerEdge 750 I could use)
2) Set the 725N's second gigabit adapter to an 8-port gigabit switch dedicated only for backup traffic.
3) Set the 745N's second gigabit adapter to that backup switch.
4) Connect the PE750's second gigabit adapter to that backup switch.
...Would I be able to get the maximum transfer rate in this configuration on both tape drives if say one was working on the 725N and the other on the 745N at the same time?
Thanks,
~nt~
dell-richard g
605 Posts
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October 5th, 2004 22:00
Yes, you can add the third server as a "dedicated" backup server. By doing this, all load is placed on this backup server instead of your other two file servers. In other words, let the third server do all the heavy work for backups.
Since your two servers have two NICs already, I assume that you are using load balancing and fault tolerance software, correct? If so, do not break that combination, but you can add a third NIC to those two server, than add a NIC to the backup server as you mentioned.
Make sure you set the new NICs on a separate network and subnet.
Once this is all done, you can simultaneously backup the two servers. Performance should be OK with the two backup streams. The 1 Gbps througput is about 100 MB/Sec, but in theory, you will see about 80 MB/Sec, which is well in the range of two backups treams.
The LTO2 drives can so 30/60 MB/Sec (60 if you get 2:1 compression).
Tape backup software also offers network accelerator agents to speed up backups over the network. You will need to install the agents.
All this is easy to setup and very inexpensive.
Message Edited by Dell-Richard G on 10-05-2004 06:31 PM