Veeam - General Storage Query

[Rich]

Hi there,

Just a general query regarding Veeam storage recommendations. We operate a basic virtual environment - 3 vSphere hosts, IBM DS3400 SAN, 20 VMs consuming approx 1TB disk space. In addition to traditional backup software (Commvault), we've recently implemented Veeam Backup.

Amazed with the product and capabilities, however, our (Veeam) hardware, in particular storage, is woefully under-specced for the job. Our primary Veeam backup storage location was a 2TB USB drive, not ideal I know. This coped admirably for 6 months, then unsurprisingly suffered hardware failure....

We've freed up numerous PowerEdge servers during virtualisation, so I'm now considering implementing one of these as a dedicated Veeam server, installing 3 x 1Tb SAS drives, RAID 5 the lot, and run backups to this internal array.

Is this a sound approach? I should mention, we are trying to keep costs to a minimum - the basic requirement is to provide 2Tb of reliable storage for Veeam backups. Are there better, cost effective solutions out there i.e. NAS?

Thanks for your input,

Richard

[Gostev]

Hi Richard, yes this is sound approach and very good investment in the Veeam Backup architecture given some new capabilities coming in v5 release. Having backup storage local (or directly attached) to Veeam server will likely provide some performance benefits around the new functionality.

Plus, given that you already have hardware you could use, I do not know if NAS approach will be cheaper for you. Frankly I keep looking for cheap 4 drive consumer nice for home use past half year, and cannot find good deal. Anything that meets my requirements is about USD 1000 in local price, and that is still consumer product (although higher-end due to my requirements). And I assume you won't be looking for consumer products for your environment, because you would need proper support and added reliability.

Hope this helps!

[Rich]

Thanks for the prompt response and thoughts on backup storage solutions. Much appreciated.

[sam88]

Try out Synology NAS. Just install 4 1TB SATA disks and you get a really nice 4TB NAS for less than $1K. The performance is pretty good and it has tons of features. If you have more budget the QNAP NAS is also a very good choice.

[TrevorBell]

Hi Richard, yes this is sound approach and very good investment in the Veeam Backup architecture given some new capabilities coming in v5 release. Having backup storage local (or directly attached) to Veeam server will likely provide some performance benefits around the new functionality.

Plus, given that you already have hardware you could use, I do not know if NAS approach will be cheaper for you. Frankly I keep looking for cheap 4 drive consumer nice for home use past half year, and cannot find good deal. Anything that meets my requirements is about USD 1000 in local price, and that is still consumer product (although higher-end due to my requirements). And I assume you won't be looking for consumer products for your environment, because you would need proper support and added reliability.

Hope this helps!

www.drobo.com The way forward guys... i have one for testing with 4 x 1tb but the beauty is you can start with say 4 x 250gig and change one at a time i.e mix and match drives 3 x 250gig 1 x 1tb and they are still raided!

[Gostev]

Drobo is nice, but costs USD 1000 sharp in local price (w/no hard drives)