Shared storage solution for our sql server backups

Question

We have 3 clustered sql servers. We have 5+ multi terrabyte databases and their backup files (compressed using quest litespeed) are hitting over 600gb each, We are required to keep at least a week or two weeks (if we can) of weekly full backups and then 6 days differential backups, and a week or 2 weeks worth of log backups local. We are currently limited to 2TB volumes from our san team, we can have multiple volumes but they are expensive ($200 per raw TB per month) and having to deal with many backup volumes instead of a single big volume is difficult. I think if we could have a shared network storage of 20TB+ raid 10 or so for all our servers for keeping the backups and another department will copy them to tape from the network storage and delete files according to the retention period would be good, if this box would be a build in operating system (even unix a complete file storage system) that would be good. What do you guys think, does this make sense to you, is there any manufacturer that sells a storage product like that which that work in a clustered environment? Thank you

Answer 1

The solution to the centralized storage being too expensive is not to simply buy or build your own. It's unlikely that you'd get the same reliability and serviceability (and probably replication) from whatever you build or buy as your storage team has from their box. That said, if it's been a while since they refreshed the storage, you might see your prices go down after the next refresh. Drives are bigger now than they were 3 years ago, and that means the price per TB should become lower.

Short of a storage refresh, you could try to bargain for a fairer price per TB when you can get 900GB SAS drives and 3TB neatline-sas drives these days. If you don't need replication, maybe ask for a reduced price based on that too.