Backing up 40GB database to remote location.

What am I looking for?

[woop01]

How do you handle backing up a 40GB database to a remote location? I have several back ups on different computers at the web host if a bomb went off in Sacramento, I'd be out of luck. I don't have access to the actual server.

Are there specific services that handle this? If so, what is that type of service called?

Would it be cheaper to just look into getting another dedicated server with another host and backing up directly to that?

[zCat]

I only have a very vague recollection, but I seem to recall the kind of service you're looking for does exist but in a very specialized market (i.e. pretty expensive). A solution with another dedicated server would probably be better value for money.

However 40GB is quite a lot of data, even in this day and age. I could imagine problems transferring that amount of data on a daily basis between remote locations via the "normal" internet. It should be doable over a 100/1000Mb/s local network.

One possibility, depending on your database software, would be to set up some form of replication to the remote machine, this means - after copying the initial data - only the incremental changes need to go over the network.

I only have a modest couple of GB, and two machines at the same remote location but in different buildings, neither of which have been bombed yet ;).

[maccas]

[pcworld.com...]

[Mr Bo Jangles]

I pay $5/month to backup 10Gb - for $20/month you can backup 100Gb - I'll sticky you.

[woop01]

Thanks for the replies.

zCat, it wouldn't be a daily backup, not with that much data. I would just do this weekly or bi-weekly. Must customers would understand if I had to lose two weeks of data in the event of a catastrophe, I just don't want to be sent back to 1999.

[Nutter]

Could you set up another server across the country as a slave to your database server? My understanding is that every write to the master server would be replicated on the slave, keeping them in sync. Of course you'd have to do the first sync which would take a while.

[Moosetick]

99% of that data is almost surely stagnant and will never change. Why don't you back up the 40GB once and then worry about the 1% that changes and any additions that take place.

That is an insane amount of data to backup remotely on any regular basis. If you have a full T1 available, it would take about 60 hours to move 40GB across the line. Actually it would take longer since that isn't accounting for packaging the data.

You can be vague, but what type of information do you have in a 40GB database that needs to be connected to the internet?

[woop01]

Text based online games/simulations.

I don't know why I didn't say it before but the majority of that 40GB is in indexes.