Recommendations for New Backup NAS

[jlester]

We've been using Veeam to backup approximately 7TB to another building on our WAN. The backup repository is currently an HP X1800 running Windows Storage Server 2008 as an iSCSI target. I've never cared for that setup because of all the extra layers required (VHD files, spanning VMDKs, etc.) Also, vSphere 5.1 seems to have issues with the MS iSCSI target. The main data center and backup site are connected with 2GB/s over fiber. Veeam runs as a VM and uses Virtual Appliance mode for the backups. The iSCSI target is presented to the host, not to the Veeam VM.

We're going to be adding a more generic NAS at the backup site to replace the HP box. We're looking at the different Netgear models since they are cost effective and VMware certified. My question is how to present the backup storage to Veeam? Is it better to present it as iSCSI or NFS? Should it be presented to the hosts and then create VMDKs to the Veeam VM, or use RDM, or present it to the VM's OS directly? What gives us the quickest path back after some sort of major disaster at our data center?

Thanks,
Jason

[foggy]

Jason, the best choice is either to present the volumes through iSCSI to the Veeam backup server itself or add the NAS as a Linux-type backup repository (in case it has ordinary Linux installed as SSH and Perl are required; otherwise, you can mount NAS to any Linux box and add this box as repository).

[jlester]

Thanks, that is the option I was leaning towards. With our current setup, there are so many places that a small problem could cause major ones. Mounting the iSCSI drive directly on the Veeam server seems by far the best option. In a major failure of some sort, I would just need a Windows computer running Veeam to connect to the iSCSI drive and then start restoring stuff.

After readying through lots of past threads last night, I think I will also place a VM at the same location as our backup device and let it host the repository. Currently, our Veeam server hosts the repository and the backup proxy. This will help us split up the load some.

Thanks,
Jason

[Andreas Neufert]

Hi Jason,

why not publish 2 iSCSI volumes.
1 as a datastore to VMware ESX(i) hosts (shared)=> Install your Backup & Replication on it
1 as a in Guest iSCSI connetion directly to the Backup & Replication Server VM.

In case you loose all of your ESX(i) Servers you can mapp the B&R boot datastore to a fresh installed ESX(i) host. Register the VM => Start Restores.
This is a bit faster then installing a new Windows VM and Veeam + Import => Start Restores.

CU Andy

[Yuki]

You didn't say what type of backup you are running. From personal experience - large reverse incremental backups don't do well with inexpensive NAS systems.

We are running many backups to 12-16 drive NAS or Dell R720 servers (all in RAID5) and reverse incremental on a 7TB job is quite bad (5-12MB/s, with bottleneck being the storage). Had several cases opened with Veeam and the result has always been the same - storage is having hard time keeping up with I/O.