How do I do a scheduled mirror backup online?

[michaelj]

Hi
I am buying 2 indentical T60s for my client with the intention of having one T60 on standby so that, should the primary T60 require servicing or suffer a hardware failure, my client would be able to switch to the other T60 immediately - because it would always contain an up-to-the-minute mirror image of the primary workstation's hard drive.

My dilemma is finding backup software that would regularly update the standby T60 over a LAN so that it mirrors the primary system.

My idea is that the software would perform updates over the LAN such as replicating windows updates, driver updates, newly installed applications as well as backing up data files.

Doing a Rescue & Recovery backup does not appear to be an option as this cannot be configured to update the secondary workstation directly - R&R will only back up to a server or NAS device. And I need this to happen on the fly so as not to interfere with my clients use of her laptop.

Anyone have any suggestions?

[kskim91]

Wow, talk about mission critical redunency. Good Idea, but one thing I would worry about is a fault getting mirrored if the update is done too frequently. Maybe a back up machine with up to date in data, but with a lag in system update.

For the software would suggest Acronis True image.

[michaelj]

Thanks.
I will check to see if True Image does a version that updates on the fly over a network. Their standard product is similar to rescue and recovery and needs user intervenntion.

I did find a product that will update data only - on the fly, over a network. It's called SureSync from Software Pursuits.

[kskim91]

Hmm... On the fly for the whole system, that makes it tricky. I know that it easily done on linux, but on winxp the only ones I've seen is scheduled only.

I'll be interested if you get a workable and affordable solution.

[smugiri]

Some thoughts, they might not be fully coherent or crystallized but they may get you/others thinking about some kind of solution

For the "easiest" way to do this, I would put the 2nd T60's HDD in the 1st T60's ultra bay after installing the OS/Apps/whatever. You could potentially install the OS on each (separately or install on one then clone) and then get machine based mirroring software. Set it up to mirror the whole drive or specific folder or whatever.

To make things even simpler, do not install a HDD in 2nd T60's HDD bay so that it will know to ALWAYS boot from the ultra bay.

When the 1st T60 goes out of commission, you pull out the ultra bay drive, pop it in the 2nd machine and you are ready to go.

If the issue is losing the whole machine then get a Dock II, put the drive in the ultrabay in the Dock and use the same setup. This approach means that losing the machine means you still have your data. The problem though is that the machine MUST be docked for mirroring to work.

Another approach is a USB drive since the T60 can boot off one of these - basically, you install OS and complete setup on the 1st machine and clone the drive onto a USB hdd. You can then hook this driveup to the 2nd T60 as needed and boot off it. Very portable, always available and performance will be pretty good. The cables will be messy though.

Data Mirror can do real time mirroring over a network or from disk to disk. It is not cheap though.
Just some thoughts.

[michaelj]

Thanks Steve
the 2nd HDD in the Ultra bay sounds like a great idea.

Is there an app that can do mirroring on the fly - like Data Mirror?Do you have any experience of this program or any others that you could recommend.

Basically, I want something that avoids user intervention, and is automated.
Mike

[smugiri]

Or you could try using Windows to run the disks in RAID 1 (sorry, I am not sure that Win XP/Vista can do this, anyway, the idea is I point you towards places where you can start your research).

If you do get the Windows setup working, it will be completely automated, will cost 0$ and will require 0 (zero) user intervention.

You will have to buy an ultra bay slim HDD caddy though for about $50 maybe? Check IBM's site.

All real time enterprise mirroring solutions are going to be expensive and technical and those are all I know so I might not be a good source of info. Try Replicator
or Data Mirror which I pointed you to before.

[smugiri]

Oh, I forgot, using Windows for RAID 1 will demand that the T60s be 100% identical hardware-wise else Windows will scream and start installing drivers when the drive is moved.

Also, the caddy approach might throw a couple of errors Windows will expect disk hardware in the 2nd T60s hdd slot. It should work though.

[Nolonemo]

Isn't there a basic problem with the "on the fly" imaging approach?

I mean, say something happens (as a previous poster mentioned), and the data (in the broadest sense) on the HD get corrupted, and that corrupted data is merrily being written to the mirror, at some point the corruption hits a critical system file, and the system goes down. Now what you have is a mirror of the drive just before the crash. That's not what you want to end up with.

I would say that what you want is a periodic imaging of the HD, on a 2 or 3 deep retention system, with real-time mirroring of the data on the fly (which would mean on file closure or release), again to a 2 or 3 deep retention system.

The on the fly data mirroring can be accomplished pretty easily, there's a lot of software that will do that. I don't know about the imaging software (you want something that will manage the generations of images, deleting the oldest in the stack when a new one is created).

[michaelj]

You are right that on-the-fly imaging, i.e. RAID 1, has the inherent problem that corruption, malware etc will be copied to the miroored drive.

We already have a solution for the data backup, but what we want is a solution for minimum downtime in the event of a hardware failure.

So if, as has been the case recently, the internal wireless card fails, or the screen suddely starts to develop black horizontal lines, then we can simply transfer the working HDD to a duplicate machine which will take less than 5 minutes and have the client up and running.

Now all I need to do is find a RAID 1 solution that works for the T60.

[smugiri]

. . .

Now all I need to do is find a RAID 1 solution that works for the T60.

. . .

Maybe you missed it - I did post a link showing how to do RAID 1 using just Windows.

[michaelj]

Thanks.
I did miss it. I'll read it through during the holidays.