Backups - On-site full + Offsite incrementals

Hello Virtuamlin support team,

We currently have NAS device on-site that we are doing full nightly backups to of all virtualmin domains/servers. We also have an offsite NAS device that we are seeking to employ for additional (offsite) backups.

We need to get virtualmin configured in the best way possible to most effectively & efficiently back up the domains.

We would like to continue to do nightly full backups to our on-site NAS, and then also do a weekly (or monthly or bi-monthly) full backup to our off-site NAS. We would also like to do a daily incremental backup to the off-site NAS. This way we are able to meet the following objectives:

  1. Full data offsite so that in the case of a local catastrophe, we will still have all data & be able to restore/rebuild all sites to the state that they were on the previous night.

  2. Full daily backups on-site for quick restores when needed (we are less concerned about the throughput usage with the full on-site backups since they are not going over the internet).

  3. Efficient use of bandwidth for the offsite backups (doing a full backup of all servers took 4-5 days last time I did it) (this included constraining our offsite NAS device to 1Mbps download in order to not have a major impact on our internet service at our office).

Further details/thoughts:

I am not clear on the best way to do this via Virtualmin. Based on the user interface, it seems that the incremental is what Microsoft calls a "Differential". This is a full backup of all files changed "SINCE THE LAST FULL BACKUP". That will work for us. But the main problem as I see it is that our daily full backups to the on-site NAS will probably cause the offsite incrementals to only have data changed since the previous day, rather than since the last off-site FULL monthly backup. This is because the daily full backups to the on-site NAS will probably essentially reset whatever bit/attribute virtualmin is using in its logic to determine which files have been included in a recent full backup.

I could be wrong on this, as I don't know all of the inner-workings of virtualmin under the hood.

In any case, I do appreciate your assistance in helping me to determine the best solution to get the backups configured in a way that will meet our objectives.

Sincerely,

Douglas Mortensen Impala Networks, Inc.

Status: 
Active

Comments

Howdy --

Based on the user interface, it seems that the incremental is what Microsoft calls a "Differential"

Yup, that's correct!

And to restore one of those, what you would need is two backups... the most recent Full, and your desired "Incremental".

the main problem as I see it is that our daily full backups to the on-site NAS will probably cause the offsite incrementals to only have data changed since the previous day, rather than since the last off-site FULL monthly backup.

That's correct -- the Incremental backup will include all files since the most recent Full backup. In your case, it doesn't sound like that's what you want... I unfortunately don't know of a good way around that.

How would you feel about performing a weekly Full, rather than a daily Full?

And then, throughout the week, you could perform Incrementals -- both to store onsite and offsite.

The downside there is that you'd have to restore both the Full and the Incremental. However, unless a significant amount of data changes over the week, your incrementals wouldn't be very large... the most amount of time would go into restoring the Full backup, it should then be pretty quick to restore the Incremental.

Just wanted to add that the database backup is always "full" and not "differential".