Backup Destination and remote Offsite Copy
Apologies if these seem like dumb questions..
We have a branch office nearby connected over an uncontended 10Mbps leased line.
Would it we sensible/practical to use a Backup Destination folder on the network at this branch office remote location as the backup destination target ?
Or should we really be creating the initial recovery points to a local Backup Destination folder first and then use the Offsite Copy option to copy them to the remote folder at the branch office ? Obviously this has the advantage that a local set of backup recovery files are always on hand locally for rapid access.
Will the program have trouble creating and managing/cataloging recovery points over this slower WAN link ? I suspect that this will be the case as the number of files increases.
The program certainly seems happier managing the recovery points when they are local, for when I try to set this up with the recovery points created at the remote site after there are a few then the program seems to respond much slower when you open it up to interrogate things.
Also in order to do this we had to create the base recovery points locally and then take them to the remote site and copy them into a folder.
The base backup was 12GB so we could have just about created this over the WAN link, but this is just a trial at the moment and we are hoping to use this on a server of around 200GB plus. Obviously it's going to be impractical to move this base copy across the WAN link so we were planning on transporting this across manually. Does it matter that we do this and just copy the base copy into the remote folder ?
Or if we work as per how it is described in the manual and create the Backup Destination folder locally and then elect to use Office Copy option to create remote copies..how ought we get the initial 200GB or so base copy to the remote site folder ? just leave it running for days ? or again create the initial Offsite copy locally to a ext USB drive and then transport this to the remote location and then add the smaller copies to itacross the WAN link ?
Also does it matter what type of media I create the backup recovery points onto ?
I have a choice of locally connected external USB drives or a NAS box on the local LAN.
Which would be best ? Does it come down to which I would be most happier restoring from in the vent that this became necessary ?
And am I correct in assuming that when a full restore is performed just the latest set of recovery points are used along with the base recovery points ?
Or is it the latest set along all the other preceeding sets and the base set ? I suspect the latter ?
Thanks
jdrsmith,
There is a lot of information in this thread and clearly you have tried various things. It's tricky for me to attempt to comment or answer all of them now.
That said, as Markus has pointed out, ultimately it depends on the speed of your network connection AND on the amount of data you need to transfer. It sounds as though you only have an issue when trying to transfer the base (full) recovery point (incrementals are working fine, right?).
To answer one of the comments above; the primary backup destination can be pretty much anything you want (local disk, local USB, local or remote network share, NAS etc) but it basically boils down to the network path as to which one is more practical to use.
Based on your scenario, backing up to a local device (USB, network share) sounds like the best option and then use offsite copy to transfer to your remote office. At the end of the day, you might need to consider improving the network connection between the two locations (this is just a thought). Alternatively, have you considered trying the 'Divide into smaller files to simplify archiving' option (advanced options of backup job) to see if this helps with the transfer to your remote office?
Any further questions, just let us know.