Backup testing

[Guest]

Hi,
I back up my server system state to the tape. I would like to know if I can
view files in system state. Because I would like to test the my backup tape,
I just want to view and compare the system state on the server and system
state on the backup tape. It is risky to restore system state from backup
tape. I just want to test my back up tape. Any idea how to test the backup
tape without doing restore it ? Thanks

 

[JS]

One trick we used was to simulate a total loss of our Raid 5 drives, we
replaced all the drives with new un-used drives and then tested the restore.
A restore is the only way to be certain!!!

JS

 

[Haggis]

One trick we used was to simulate a total loss of our Raid 5 drives, we
replaced all the drives with new un-used drives and then tested the
restore. A restore is the only way to be certain!!!

JS

see if your backup software has the option to restore to a different
location ....then do a file comparison

 

[Kerry Brown]

Hi,
I back up my server system state to the tape. I would like to know if
I can view files in system state. Because I would like to test the my
backup tape, I just want to view and compare the system state on the
server and system state on the backup tape. It is risky to restore
system state from backup tape. I just want to test my back up tape.
Any idea how to test the backup tape without doing restore it ? Thanks

Without restoring there is no way to test a tape and be 100% sure with a
system state backup. With servers I usually test the backup with a complete
flatten and restore fairly early in the install when building it. This way I
know the solution works. Once the server is built I keep an image of it
available. After any changes the image is updated. After that I periodically
restore some files to an alternate location and compare them to the
original. Unfortunately there is no way to compare the system state. As
someone else has mentioned you could also remove the hard drives, install
identical units and test that way. You should also make sure sure you have
multiple backups in case any given tape goes bad. If it's a mission critical
server I test a total rebuild on different hardware once in while as well.
It is quite likely that when the server fails you may be rebuilding it on
different hardware.