Is it possible to run a backup server with 2GB RAM?: Page 2 - Enhance Control Panel

Is it possible to run a backup server with 2GB RAM?

ivansalloum

Dusan You should have two hard drives at least. One for the whole system, and one for Enhance backups.

Dusan

ivansalloum the server does have 2 disks with 10TB each.

ivansalloum

Dusan You should specify the one that is not being used for the backup role upon installing it.

Dusan

ivansalloum I was trying to add both /dev/sda and /dev/sdb and still the same thing.

ivansalloum

Dusan Could you please share the full error message?

Dusan

ivansalloum The error in the bottom left of the Enhance panel, just says "Unable to add "Backup" roll to server Ubuntu-14-239..." nothing else.

It's a root server with 2 disks, 10 TB each. Only installed Ubuntu and that's it. Added it to the Enhance panel and it was showing about 10TB of space (shouldn't it show 20 TB?) and tried to add Backup roll, but no success.

In "Device path" field I've tried both /dev/sda and /dev/stb.

ivansalloum

Dusan If it's okay for you, contact me per email (hello@ivansalloum.com) and let's see what we can do. Anyways, open a support ticket and ask Adam for help.

Dan

Dusan I'd recommend checking the docs again at https://enhance.com/docs/backup-role/installing-backup-role.html

The partition you're using for backups needs to be unmounted so Enhance can format it as btrfs

adil

Your issue might be that you have installed the Ubuntu using Hetzner Raid, which uses both drives as one, like mirroring each other, sorry I am not that expert in Raid.

So you have to re-install and edit the config of the installer of Hetzner.

https://docs.hetzner.com/robot/dedicated-server/operating-systems/installimage/#drives

cPFence

cosmoshosting I've got the backup service running on as little as 1GB of RAM but found 2GB ideal for our 10 or so servers.
Very happy with AlphaVPS which provides us a separation from Hetzner where some of primary services are hosted.

Same here. AlphaVPS has been solid for backup VPS, no issues so far.

nqnoc

cPFence Are you using AlphaVPS VPS server with just 1 single disk for OS and Backups? Or do they provide somekind of block storage or additional disk for the VPS?

cPFence

nqnoc Are you using AlphaVPS VPS server with just 1 single disk for OS and Backups? Or do they provide somekind of block storage or additional disk for the VPS?

We usually partition the VPS into a 40GB / partition and use the rest of the space for backups. After partitioning, you can go ahead and install Enhance and the backup role. Here’s the setup on one of our backup servers:

root@bkpsrv1:~# lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
vda    253:0    0    1T  0 disk 
├─vda1 253:1    0    1M  0 part 
├─vda2 253:2    0    2G  0 part [SWAP]
├─vda3 253:3    0   40G  0 part /
└─vda4 253:4    0  982G  0 part /backups

We find this setup works well for lots of small WordPress sites with 30-day daily backups on a 1TB VPS. For clients with larger sites, Enhance makes it easy to move them to another backup server as needed.

nqnoc

cPFence So on AlphaVPS do you install Ubuntu manually using a .ISO to create the partitions during installation process? Or do you install Ubuntu automatic using SolusVM and then, after server is setup you manually create the partitions?
Thanks

cPFence

nqnoc So on AlphaVPS do you install Ubuntu manually using a .ISO to create the partitions during installation process?

Yes, the AlphaVPS client area has all the tools you need for this. Just make sure to finish the partitioning first, then install Enhance once you're all set.

cristianuibar

We use a Hetzner VPS, which is the smallest possible. As for storage, we used a Storage Box. We mounted it using a loop device, and formatted it based on the Enhance specifications.

cPFence

cristianuibar We use a Hetzner VPS, which is the smallest possible. As for storage, we used a Storage Box. We mounted it using a loop device, and formatted it based on the Enhance specifications.

That's an interesting setup. You'll have snapshots backups for both the VPS and the Btrfs drive, nice! We also have our own solution for taking snapshots of the backup server and Btrfs drive, but nothing beats the convenience of cloud snapshots like Hetzner offers.

The only drawback might be performance issues if the loop device is used for large-scale backups. Keep us updated on how it goes.

cristianuibar

I just installed a new backup server since I had some issues with the previous one so I monitored it a bit during the initial backup process and here is what I found.

During the initial migration/backup of all sites on my cluster, I monitored the backup server load. It seems it has never gone too high. It mostly stays at around 30% CPU usage while in the full backup process. I can only see a few rsync processes running, and they seem to be capped at 7 or 8 at a time.

Memory usage never went over 500M. It mostly stayed at 450M. "htop" reports a load average of 9.5 but I rarely see the actual CPU % to go over 30%.

This is running on a 2 Intel CPUs with 4G RAM, a CX22 VPS at Hetzner, with a network-attached drive using a loop device for btrfs support. So now I believe the main bottleneck is the network-attached drive. Looking at the I/O using "iotop" shows the top DISK WRITE to be at around 7MB/s on average but from time to time it goes up to 17mb/s.

Nevertheless, the backup speed for my current needs seems acceptable. I don't host huge websites yet; I only do daily backups. Also, considering the big cost difference between this setup and an SSD setup using normal VPS block storage, I prefer this approach even if it's slower due to I/O transfer speed throttle.

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