How To Do A Full Mirror Image Backup Of Dedicated Server

[SonWebHost]

How would I do a full mirror image backup using a second server at a data center the same as the one I am using to prevent data lost. I am thinking that if I have a second dedi that has all the data of the first server I could do a full company recovery should something happen to my first server. How can I set this up thanks

 

[24x7server]

Hi,

The best tool available for cloning the disk is "dd" it will create a replica of disk.

Just for example, you want to clone Disk 1 to Disk 2 (SDA to SDB)

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=32M

Most important to note is "the Disk should not be used while executing this. There are chances of data corruption with use of any disk while clonning is in progress."

 

[oneilonline]

Yes, the post above is a block by block backup of a hard drive. To do this you want to make sure the HDs are identical.

Another option is rsync. This method will copy files/folders to a backup location.

But this is all assuming this is a Linux server...?

 

[Sindre]

Another option, and one that we have used successfully in the past, is the bare-metal restore feature of R1Soft. It is a backup software that comes with a price, but its features are really great. Basically you can do a complete block-level backup of your server and restore the full image to another server (as long as the hardware is more or less the same). If your server crashes e.g. due to hard drive failure, just replace the faulty drives or boot up a new server and restore. Works great.

 

[vegas]

what this guy want to do is a backup since his heart fears,Im sure there is ways to backup in a slave master mode

 

[swedendedicated]

Use the dd method only when in single user mode, else you'll get corrupted files.

 

[oneilonline]

I would recommend rsync. You can Google the man pages.

 

[storminternet]

It's always better to use redundant array of independent disks (RAID) for data safety. Even if any disk fails for some reason we can retrieve data from the another disk/disks.

Rsync , dd can be use to copy the data but that disk should be able to perform read , write operation. It it gets completely corrupted it is hard to recover the data.

 

[24x7server]

Hi,

Rsync will give you copy of data whereas DD will give you exact replica of block by block data.

However, DD command will work best if your disk is okay. If your disk primarily is not functioning properly, then DD command will also not help you out with this.

 

[Steadfast Andy]

I'd suggest that if you are going to take the time to setup a warm server (meaning it is not in use but will hold your data in case you need to implement a fast disaster recovery) that you do it with another hosting provider at another location or city entirely. No sense in deploying an entire other server just to preserve data unless you are also going to protect against data center failures or acts of god and war. You may as well protect yourself from power outages, network outages, and other possible disaster scenarios.

Otherwise just backup your data to on-site or off-site backup space at a lower cost with your current or other host and be done with it. IMHO it makes no sense in having the full costs of dedicated hardware on standby if it's going to be in the same building.

 

[ughosting]

You may actually find having something like R1Soft taking regular backups, say every couple of hours, and using their bare metal restore (super quick) if something goes wrong.

https://r1softstorage.com/

This cloud provided service by backupsy is very popular and super cheap (we are NOT affiliated in any way) there are others around the same price point avalable.

Nothing gives me peace of mind like a good backup!

 

[Collabora]

Be careful of what you ask for! Some do not consider a server mirror to be a backup.

With mirror backups, when a file in the source is deleted, that file is eventually also deleted in the mirror backup.

If its a mirror backup you want, be sure to configure your software or service to delay file deletion. For example, configure your backup software for a 30-day delete. That way if a file is deleted by accident it can still be recovered. At the same time the mirror won't grow forever, as it would if deletion is disabled.

Also to consider: If you have a mirror on a secondary server, data recovery is not necessary -- just point clients to the new server. This is one of the primary purposes of server mirroring (and load balancing)

 

[Steadfast Andy]

For bare metal backups and restorations we like R1Soft CDP. We like it so much we even include it and a good amount of backup space free with our fully managed servers and set it up for customers. It's a great backup platform so definitely check it out.

 

[evgeni22]

o0 didnt you hear of cluster? if you have 2 servers then do cluster not backup.

 

[vegas]

If you restore your image at a diferent hardware ,it wont work honey