Network Attached Storage

A new survey has recorded the opinions of business owners in relation to storage solutions by Debian, Ubuntu and Red Hat (News - Alert).

The survey of 100 small and medium business users, sponsored by Symform, was designed to identify the most common distributions among Linux users interested in additional data backup, particularly cloud-based solutions.

According to the survey, among those using Linux on file servers 54 percent use Red Hat.

"When it comes to Linux market share information, there is good data about Web server deployments from organizations such as W3Techs, but we wanted to shed light on SMBs' use of Linux for file servers, such as what Linux chains organizations use to store their data," said Margaret Dawson, vice president of product management and marketing at Symform, in a statement.

"As an added benefit, we are also getting this information directly from the businesses, since they typically manage their own file servers, whereas with web servers, the Linux decision is often made by the hosting companies SMBs leverage for web servers," said Dawson.

Most file server deployments, according to the survey, signal a high degree of co-existence of Linux chains, with many who use Red Hat/CentOS also utilizing Debian/Ubuntu (News - Alert).

However, when it comes to data volume, the Symform survey revealed differences in the chains, with Debian/Ubuntu users storing more data on those file servers.

In fact, 63 percent of Debian/Ubuntu users have one terabyte or more of data stored on the file servers, compared to only 46 percent utilizing Red Hat/CentOS for similar data volumes.

The survey also found that SMB Linux users rely on Rsync for data backup due to limited Linux support for cloud-based solutions.

According to survey findings, when it comes to data backup, nearly 20 percent of respondents are doing nothing for local, or on-premise, backup. Among those that are doing local backup, 37 percent rely on Rsync, an application and protocol used for data sync and mirroring.

The survey found that for secondary or remote data backup, nearly 20 percent of respondents again are doing nothing. The majority of those that are doing remote backup use physical tape rotation to another location or a custom application. Few are using cloud backup, which is indicative of the limited availability of affordable cloud backup solutions for Linux servers on the market today.

The survey results separately indicate that a large percentage would use a cloud backup solution if it supported the right Linux distribution and security requirements, with 68 percent saying they would be likely to use the Symform Global Cloud Storage Network to back up their Linux file servers.

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