Now wait, you might say your server is only at USB 2.0. That's fine, because you need to first pick a different computer to initially backup your SQL server and this is where you select a shared network drive on a computer that has USB 3.0 ports. Mostly likely a newer desktop computer with 1TB or 2TB of internal storage. This will be your first line of defense computer should you need to recover SQL Server data files. If something happens to this computer you can fall back on your external USB hard drive.
First thing you should do each work day is bring in your external hard drive and plug it into the computer where your nightly backups are saved and copy your most recent backup. Once it's done unplug the drive and move it offsite. I recommend you use windows bitlocker to first encrypt the hard drive. This is a feature built into Windows 7 and 8 versions, and it can then be unlocked on any machine using the right passcode.
I have tried Seagate external hard drives in the past but experienced bad writes so I can't recommend them. Instead I have been using Western Digital My Passport drives and have been very pleased with performance for over a year with them. These are the ones I like to buy WD My Passport Ultra 1TB Portable External Hard Drive USB 3.0 with Auto and Cloud Backup - Black (WDBZFP0010BBK-NESN)
We currently backup our Windows Server 2012 file server to external hard drives, and rotate them, so that one goes offsite. However, the drives aren't currently encrypted with BitLocker, and I want them to be as a matter of urgency.
ReplyDeleteCan we encrypt the drives without erasing the contents? as they're backup disks they don't show up in Explorer, so not as straight forward as copying off the contents first, encrypting them, then moving the contents back (although if we could work that out it would be great).