From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Sep 27 00:40:07 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 167C716A419 for ; Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:40:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from terry@sucked-in.com) Received: from mail.sucked-in.com (got.sucked-in.com [64.251.22.156]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C34D813C4A6 for ; Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:40:06 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from terry@sucked-in.com) Received: from localhost (got.sucked-in.com [64.251.22.156]) by mail.sucked-in.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 080F91CC8B for ; Thu, 27 Sep 2007 10:40:30 +1000 (EST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at sucked-in.com Received: from mail.sucked-in.com ([64.251.22.156]) by localhost (mail.sucked-in.com [64.251.22.156]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id TF1Y2EFsPdav for ; Thu, 27 Sep 2007 10:40:29 +1000 (EST) Received: from TerryPC (220-253-154-147.VIC.netspace.net.au [220.253.154.147]) by mail.sucked-in.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id C05091CC71 for ; Thu, 27 Sep 2007 10:40:28 +1000 (EST) From: "Terry Sposato" To: Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2007 10:40:52 +1000 Message-ID: <000901c8009f$1089b740$319d25c0$@com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 12.0 Thread-Index: AcgAnwzFmSZDMDeRT3283HjQAqb77g== Content-Language: en-au Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Subject: Backup Solution X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:40:07 -0000 Hello everyone, I am relatively new to the FreeBSD game and have a bit of a problem which I am not sure how to tackle. I recently build a server running VMWare ESX Server 3 which will eventually run 6-7 small production VM's. These Virtual Machines obviously have the need for backups and it poses quite a problem for me unless I connect 6-7 external tape drives and give each VM it's own tape device. I have looked into a few solutions using VM products (consolidated backup) but it can only be done if you utilise a SAN. The server is running RAID 5 with around 700GB of space. Each VM may take up to 50GB and backups might be around 15-20GB per VM. The machine itself has an internal LTO3 tape drive, has anyone come across this kind of situation before, and if so what would be a good way to backup each VM? It is easy enough to backup the image files from the host machine but I need file level backups within each VM also. I will be very grateful for suggestions or ways people have tackled this kind of problem in a production environment. Thanks. Regards, Terry http://www.sucked-in.com Have you been sucked in?