Re: MetaStor Network Attached opinions?

[David Wolfskill <david@dhw.vip.best.com>]

>Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 14:03:34 -0500 (EST)
>From: paul.joslin@weirdness.com (Paul R. Joslin)

>Also, you need to determine how you're going to
>back up a 500 GB lump of data.  NetApp recommends NFS mounting it
>and doing it over the net.  That works, if you have a backup
>window and sufficient {net, server, tape} capacity.

When I deployed an 80 GB Filer at a former employer (spring, 1995),
getting the backups done was also an issue.

However, providing a "backup window" wasn't too much of a problem (in
and of itself):  we had 2 100Base-TX interfaces on the box; one went
over to the backbone switch; the other was for a private administrivia
net, used for backups only.

Because of the way backups are done on the Filer (make a snapshot, then
back that up), you know the data aren't changing out from under you.
And I was able to do backups during the middle of the day with no one
noticing.

Nowadays, a bit more network bandwidth might be advisable, and different
sites have different requirements, so season to taste; still, providing
a completely separate admin net turned out to be useful for me.

Cheers,
david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill				david@dhw.vip.best.com
As a computing professional, I believe it would be unethical for me to
advise, recommend, or support the use (save possibly for personal
amusement) of any product that is or depends on any Microsoft product.