Re: Backup strategy for your SAN ?

We run a 4TB Apace vStor system with 4 edit workstations. Almost everything we edit is SD using DVCPro50, so it's plenty of storage for our needs. We also use a separate, shared LaCie 2TB ethernet drive array for projects. For backup, we simply added a LaCie 4TB ethernet drive array and then use Second Copy (very simple backup software that's $39) to back it all up every night. Second Copy runs from one of the workstations and it works like a charm.

All these drive array are rack-mounted in a big, cooled closet along with our 48 port managed switch, internet, routers etc.

Keep in mind, the 4TB vStor only has about 3.2TB available for actual use, and we segmented into 2 volumes, one 200GB for audio, and 1 2.5TB for video. We use the remaining space for other stuff.

We've been running this setup for 16 months and we're not even close to filling any of the drives. The backup is about 65% full, and the other drives/volumes are roughly 40-60% full.

We prefer to keep stuff as simple as possible and this is a simple solution that just plain works.

Hope that helps.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
www.videomi.com