Multiple backups on a single external hard drive

[Ansky926]

I'm looking to eliminate the use of LTO2 Tape drive and tapes for our daily backup.  I'm currently using Backup Exec v12.5 on Windows Server 2003 and 2008.

Right now my backup rotation consists of 10 total tapes labeled Mon - Fri set 1 and a Mon - Fri set 2.  This gives me two full weeks of backups.  I would like to migrate to external hard drives as our data continues to grow and for the speed of the backup. 

I can get a few 1TB external hard drives for a good price, but I don't want to buy 10 of them since I can store several backups on a single TB external hard drive.  Would it be adviseable to store alternate night backups on one external hard drive? 

Right now when I come in the office every morning I remove the tape and take it off-site until it is needed again in two weeks.  I would still remove the external hard drive the following day and replace it with the next.  So in a worse case scenario I would still have the previous day's backup safely off-site as well as a few previous days.

So if I have three 1TB external hard drives that can save up to three individual backups on one drive, would that still considered a reasonable backup system in case of disaster/recovery?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Ken_Putnam]

Would it be adviseable to store alternate night backups on one external hard drive? 

So if I have three 1TB external hard drives that can save up to three individual backups on one drive, would that still considered a reasonable backup system in case of disaster/recovery?

Not to be snide, but only you can say what is reasonable for your situation

If your business can survive wih the data from last night's full backup (plus as many others as are on the drive) then what you have outlined (rotating the drives daily) is acceptable.

If for whatever reason (maybe audit requirements?) you must have weekly or monthly backups available for a year, then of course what you have outlined would not be reasonable

Depending on how vital each day's data is and what the backup window looks like, you might consider a FULL on Friday with INCR or DIFF the reast of the week, rotating your drives weekly.

What ever makes you feel comfortable in the face of a bare metal restore is what you should do.