Hi Mauro,
Good luck...not a bad way to learn how BE works with D2D2T and a Differential set for your first installation...?
.
That will work well, as restores from disk would always be faster than tape, along with backing up to disk. Tape being better for offsite storage.
But, to answer your questions, here we go...
1. No...not a good idea to lump everything in 1 backup job. Your full backup job of 1.2TB is going to take a while. You also mentioned you have SQL and Exchange in the mix. Around this, I would recommend the following:
- Split SQL and Exchange off in seperate jobs, and DON'T run Advanced Open File Option (AOFO). Reason for this is that snapshot backups can, and do, interfere with the way databases get backed up. You can end up with Exchange logs that don't clear, to SQL restores where you cannot redirect to another server. So this would be your first backup job...ONLY SQL/Exchange/any other databases...no AOFO
- Take your server System State backups and file and print/installations etc, and create a second job. DO use AOFO for this...this makes sure any open files will be backed up.
2. Which disk to use...a NAS means that any server can have direct access to it...nice to have, but unless you're running a 1GB LAN, a bit pointless. A NAS is also going to be cheaper than most other disk. Iomega have the Stor Center line (we are implementing those), and they are cheap, come with up to 8TB disk capacity, and can be protected by RAID, as well as being easy to use.
Don't bother with USB...you will get terrible backup speeds.
Something else to consider would be SAN storage...something like an EMC AX4 CLARiiON, or a small HP StorageWorks MSA2000 G2. SAN is going to be faster than local disk or NAS, but cost is an issue here. If you have the budget, go for this, as it allows for better expansion too.
3. When you back up to disk first, there is a very good chance the first backup will be quicker. Tape doesn't respond very well when it has lots of stiop-start activity, like during the backup of a file server. Backing up to disk will create a *.bkf file, and streaming a solid file off to tape is going to be very fast. Going to disk is not a bad thing first, and that is probably what every vendor would recommend, based on what you choose for #2.
4. Nothing less than LTO4, and at least an autoloader. If you can swing for a tape library and need to use 2 or more drives, go for that. I have seen various postings that LTO5 isn't going to see much of an improvement in performance, and it is also expensive. LTO4 would have a compressed capacity of 1.6TB which would be more than enough for you.
Hope this helps...
Laters!