The "normally" part of your comment says it all. That is why there
are two MDC's. And if the second MDC is busy with a backup, it might
not be able to keep the XSAN up, and may not stay in-sync with the
primary. Best practice is to let MDC's be MDC's and nothing else.
In our environment we have a file server hooked up to the XSAN, so
we can share out the volumes via AFP for laptops and other non-fiber
access. That also happens to be the backup server. So, if it gets
busy, no one suffers. Well, except the afp users, but they don't
care. ;-)
----- Original Message -----
From: xsan-users-bounces+scott.mcculley=email@hidden <xsan-users-bounces+scott.mcculley=email@hidden
>
To: email@hidden <email@hidden>
Sent: Mon Feb 09 07:42:14 2009
Subject: Re: Backup for small SAN
Hi Scott,
Thanks for the advice - I understand that doing it from the MDC that
currently hosts the volume would be a pretty bad idea.
Does it make any difference if I run the backup from the secondary MDC
that, in normal operation, isn't actually hosting any of the volumes?
The backup MDC just sits there doing nothing - the only reason it's
there is to take over if I have to reboot the primary in working
hours, or if the primary decides to take a dive for any reason. I'm no
Xsan guru, but I'd guess that there's no load associated with being a
backup MDC until failover occurs (since the metadata is stored on the
SAN itself).
Andy.
On 9 Feb 2009, at 13:33, Vilius Šumskas wrote:
Hi all,
No doubt this question has been asked a hundred times before, but
Google, a search of the lists and the forum didn't provide a great
deal of enlightenment..
I'm running a small Xsan, with a couple of RAIDs (4.5TB Xrad and a
7.5TB non-Apple box). Prior to my arrival, this SAN has had zero
backup.
I'm thinking about getting a SCSI autoloader (probably a Quantum
Superloader3 or a Scalar 24), and sticking an Atto SCSI HBA in the
secondary MDC to handle the backup. However, I have absolutely zero
clue what backup software works well/reliably with Xsan, having only
used Retrospect and BackupExec on non-Xsan volumes. I've read that
Retrospect is broken on Xsan.
What experience do other Xsan folks have with backup software?
What's
your recommendation on a small setup like this?
I'm searching for similar solution too. We have Sun SL500 library
with 2
LTO-4 drives and plenty of space. I'm wondering if anyone done
automated or
semi-automated backups to such hardware from Xsan storage? What
cards/cables/methods/software did they use?
--
Best Regards,
Vilius Šumskas
LNK TV IT manager
mob.: +370 614 75713
http://www.lnk.lt
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