Backup Destinations in 2021 NAS or other

[Steve1978M]

Hello all,

I am relatively new to Veeam. been using it for about 3 months. in short... What type of device do you backup to? particularly in VMware.

In Long..
I have a 3 host environment with around 10Tb used space, I have around 150Gb of transferring data per day, and it takes under 30 minutes. My servers and my SAN are 10 GBE connected to a pair of switches and I also a 2x 4 bay QNAP TS-1277XU NAS drives with 4 12 tb drives in Raid 5 giving 36TB usable.

I am getting a new SAN and I have a bit of budget left over for a new backup destination. My current ones don't really give me the RPO that i am after so looking for something with more space. When i backup the bottleneck is always the Destination (NAS). So this got me thinking, should i just get another NAS, one with some NVMe Caching... or should i do something else?

How would you design this?

Thanks

[HannesK]

Hello,
the recommendation is a server with internal disks and a proper RAID controller (with write cache & battery). By doing that, you can use REFS with block-cloning which is impossible on NAS (or unsupported).

Consumer NAS systems (like the one you mentioned) are the number one reason in Veeam support for data loss.

Best regards,
Hannes

[Steve1978M]

Ok thanks, that gives me some reading material. As I use VMware, I use Veeam installed with repository servers, one on each host.

Does it matter what spec the destination server is? as I think I am going to require around 50 TB of usable disk space do you have any pointers in what to look for in regards to disk shelf, any must have items?

Would something like a QSAN be sufficient?

[HannesK]

For small environments (without geo-redundant storage) I would always go for a standalone server that is independent from virtualization and even Active Directory. That avoids chicken / egg issues.

I would go to my preferred server vendor and put everything on one server. There are models with 12 / 24 disks in 2U, 56-90 disks in 4U (legacy form factor). For more performance, SSDs would also be possible. No shelves required. No additional hardware & complexity. Backup copy to object storage or Hardened Repository for 3-2-1 rule. That's it.

KISS

[cgsm]

What type of device do you backup to? particularly in VMware.

I have a similar sized environment although I am using vSAN instead of a physical SAN.

In short, buy yourself a Dell R740 or R7415 with a decent CPU, 32GBish of RAM, a redundant BOSS card to run Windows off on, a 10GB NIC, the best RAID controller available, max out the drives bays for future growth, and stuff the chassis full of whatever disks you find fit your budget and performance needs (SSD vs HDD, more smaller HDDs vs less larger). If you want to save some money, look at an R540 series server, purchase through XByte, or buy drives through WaterPanther/Amazon/etc.

As a build-out note, I have SSDs and HDDs in my server for the backup repo. I use the SSDs for 7 days worth of backups and backup-copy to the HDDs; this gives me quicker backups, quicker restores, removes impact on the production ESXi hosts faster, gives me a second copy of the data on the same server, and still gives me plenty of space for longer term retention. I still backup-copy elsewhere as well.

[Steve1978M]

Hi mate, believe it or not i have only just seen this message, dont know how i missed it!

What i have done, but haven't yet completed is... i have bought an x570 board with 8 SATA ports, i have bought a large fractal case, a AMD Ryzen 5600 12 core cpu and 32 gb DDR4 - 4000 mhz RAM.

I have 8 12 TB drives and I am planning on using Primocache on a M2 SSD. if the onboard x570 controller is to slow then i plan on popping an LSI controller in.

I am just debating on which OS to use. Windows 10 with ReFS / Some Linux offering with ZFS. seem to be the 2 front runners.

Any thoughts?

[HannesK]

if Linux, then I would go with XFS to to have block cloning / fast clone.

[Steve1978M]

I have another question regarding this.

So hypothetically... you have 3 node cluster and a stand alone server with 8 bays. do you..
1) install between 1 and 3 virtual proxy's servers on each node and use Veeam main program on the stand alone server, use ReFS on stand alone with the storage .
2) install 2 proxys and a virtual running Veeam and DB, install Linux on the stand alone and have that as the target using XFS
3) Something else...

[HannesK]

Hello,
I would go for 3)

The standalone backup server with enough CPU, RAM and IOPS (and yes, REFS). I would keep it simple while avoiding chicken / egg issues. I don't want to manage multiple (proxy) machines with less than 1000 VMs. One proper server can do that and it's simple

Best regards,
Hannes

[Steve1978M]

ok, good. so then in the option 3 scenario.. in my case I have a good spec PC running but my new dilemma is this. currently I have 8 18tb drives and 8 12Tb drive (all 3.5 inch) that are designated for my backups. so the question is, do I...

1) On board using LSI or RocketRaid card (hypothetically that I had enough power and space, or just use 8 x 18TB which I know wont be an issue)
2) use a 3.5 inch disk shelf and 10Gb connectivity? (any suggestions??)

Thanks for your help, mistakes cost money and without having loads of hardware to hand to try these things its hard to know what's best.

[HannesK]

sorry, I cannot help with that... I stopped "do it yourself" more than a decade ago and only recommend pre-built servers of well known brands in production.

[jorgedlcruz]

Hello,
You can find some ideas on our Veeam Ready Program, if you filter by Backup Repository and Dell, for example, you will see some examples.

Another great bundle I tend to see here in the UK is the next, HPE Apollo and Veeam:

• https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/a00064646enw

Maybe visiting those two resources would help you with some ideas. Veeam is Partner driven as well, so I am sure if you search for a local Veeam Partner, they are usually pretty happy helping you with the sizing of the hardware to perform great backups, as long as you purchase the hardware from them, etc.

Hope it helps.