How to handle old/big data

ErazerMe 46 Reputation points
2021-09-20T08:51:00.64+00:00

Hello all,
Like maybe many other companies, we always have large amounts of data that are no longer actively used, but they should still be kept for about 5 years.
The files are currently mirrored on a file server within our SAN. In order to save costs and storage capacity, we would like to archive such "old data" or remove it from this server / SAN construct.

How does other companies handle this situation?
What is the best solution for "archiving" such data?
Moving them on a different fileserver, backup the files and then delete the files? (Files are then still available in backup)?
Or just copy them to a different fileserver (local disk = lower costs) and leave them for still available (no sharing, but still available) few years?

Maybe someone can explain me, how you handle this topic.

Thanks a lot.

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  1. Limitless Technology 39,371 Reputation points
    2021-09-20T14:41:30.8+00:00

    Hello

    Thank you for reaching out.

    In my experience its all depend on your IT environment and demand of data.

    You need to decide which type data they are (SQL, Files, Emails) according to your company and customers compliance policy.

    to save costs you can buy some cheap NAS or SAN appliance and move those data for archival with some basic Redundancy.

    if the data are not huge in size then you can Move it to some Local disk storage Fileserver and delete it from Original location.

    You can create Archive policy specifying what kind of data it would be arching and at what schedule.

    Hope this will give some idea regarding Archiving.

    Thanks,

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  2. Limitless Technology 39,371 Reputation points
    2021-09-20T16:45:20.167+00:00

    Hello again @ErazerMe

    Alternatively there are different ways companies handle this data.

    If the information to store is big (let´s say from 100GB a month), the recommendation is a redundancy of backup with Tapes (1 backup Tuesday, another on Thursday) to ensure that you have both a long term storage, with adequate size and accessibility. Tape drives can have some price, but tapes are cheap compared to disk storage, so if you plan to make off-site secure copies, and/or provide new media backups every year or every 6 months, that should be the best option.

    If the information is small (let´s say less than 100GB a month) the most reliable should be solid storage disks, that you can rotate, and add new one every 6 months or 1 year so you can take the copies to secured place off-site.

    All in all, price and safety wise, there is modern way of Cloud storage and cloud backup. This will allow you an all-in-one solution for redundancy, off-site, and safety, with prices very similar to a solid state drive.

    Last but not least, the golden rule is the 3 rule backup:

    • 3 different backup times (daily-weekly, monthly, yearly)
    • 3 different media (could-daily/weekly, Disk-monthly, Tape-yearly)
    • 3 different store locations (cloud, on-site, off-site)

    Hope this helps to resolve your query,
    Best regards,

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