SMtape or 3rd party backups over NDMP are valid options, but these options preserve that filer at a point in time only so you'll have to keep multiple copies around if you needed to say restore system state to 7 years ago (plus have version compatible hardware to restore to as well).
You could also look at something like SnapVault where you set up custom schedules and retentions to basically never expire snapshots and execute them over cron, you'll need to plan carefully that the destination volume has a large enough aggregate to support potentially years of growth. SnapVault would also let you restore a single file (or VM) through something like Windows explorer or UX shell (mount the SV volume in your namespace and then mount/map on your client). If you use OnCommand Protection Manager to manage the relationships it also allows you to browse the snaps in a friendly interface as well.
Good luck!
________________________________________ From: toasters-bounces@teaparty.net [toasters-bounces@teaparty.net] on behalf of John Stoffel [john@stoffel.org] Sent: Friday, June 19, 2015 11:15 AM To: Arnold de Leon Cc: toasters Subject: Re: Recommendations on preserving a filers data?
"Arnold" == Arnold de Leon a-toasters@deleons.com writes:
Arnold> What are the recommendations for the "best" way to preserve a Arnold> copy data on a filer for future use?
The problem with doing this, is that you haven't specified the time frame of how long they want to archive it.
Arnold> Background: A company has ceased operations and wants to Arnold> preserve copies of its data "just in case someone wants it in Arnold> the future". All the interesting data has been copied to the Arnold> a single "archive" filer. There are about eight volumes in Arnold> using about 50TB (with dedupe but no compression). This will Arnold> be backup copy #1. The other filers that previously held the Arnold> data are being sold and scheduled to be wiped.
I'd probably just dump the data to tape, ideally using an application aware tool, but in this case, just getting copies of the VMDKs is probably enough.
Arnold> The data is a mixed of virtual machines and file shares.
Blech...
Arnold> Now I'm trying to see if if a way to make another copy of the Arnold> data for safe keeping at a reasonable cost. Speed of restore Arnold> would not be high the feature list of this secondary archive.
Can't really beat tape for cost... esp if you want to be paranoid and make TWO copies to tape, so they you can shutoff the original filer as well to save on electricity and cooling costs.
Not sure why you hate tape, plain ole 'dump' from the filer console will do what you want. Esp if you dump each volume to it's own tape(s) to keep it easy to restore.
John
_______________________________________________ Toasters mailing list Toasters@teaparty.net http://www.teaparty.net/mailman/listinfo/toasters