Tape + Cloud for 365 backups

[mattdwyerva]

I tried to switch to Cloud Connect for all my backups, but the cost was too much. I had an LTO 5 tape drive, so changed to this process
1) Nightly backup - Reverse Incremental with 31 restore points
2) Cloud Connect backup - Incremental with 31 restore points (similar to 1 but in Cloud so not reverse). This is NOT a copy job, due to cloud cost, this is a separate backup.
3) Monthly Tape job - FULL backup of #1 above, tape recycled once a year (so 12 tapes in rotation)
4) Annual tape backup retired to long term storage

I have 500 GB active data that does not compress much but does not grow so much, so the above requires 2 TB cloud storage , which is about $2400 a year.
This also requires feeding the tape drive once a month.

I THINK I will get
a) last 31 daily restore points on disk
b) the last 31 daily restore points in the cloud (just in case disk fails)
c) the last 365 daily restore points on tapes

Does my process give me what I think I get? Any suggestions for better or best practice?

[Dima P.]

Hello Matt,

Plan looks good to me. May I ask what difference you see between direct backup job to the cloud and backup copy job in terms of cost? Thanks!

[mattdwyerva]

I wanted to use reverse incremental to disk, and normal incremental to cloud. My understanding is that standard incremental is less data transfer to cloud (?).

The main difference in cost, mentioned in my post, is related to the desire/need for monthly backups. LTO5 tape cost is about $20 each for - say - 4 years, so about $5/yr (I already own the tape drive) for a monthly copy plus 30 days of incrementals. A full 500 GB copy in cloud is about $600 per year even if I don't backup the 30 days of incrementals as well, and ignoring workspace requirements (which makes sense when we multiply by 12). 12 copies in the cloud is awfully expensive, imo.

I do like the cloud as a stable, convenient, off-site, near-term backup location, but I am using off-site tapes for longer term storage. It is comforting to have some backup data offline, since it is pretty hard to hack data that is disconnected from the web.