Canada or EMEA: Preload data to an Axcient data center

Written By Tami Sutcliffe (Super Administrator)

Updated at June 22nd, 2023

Canadian partners have the option of using Webseed, which involves seeding to your drive and then uploading the seed data over the internet (from your customer’s location or from another location with higher bandwidth).

If you do not wish to utilize the Webseed option, you’ll need to send a physical preload drive, following these instructions:

Preparing your drive

  • Choose a disk large enough to contain all the data for the job. The Axcient Backup for Files software does not support spreading data for a single account across multiple disks. At the time of this writing, you can buy single disks up to 6TB in size. You can use multi-drive RAID0 enclosures or NAS devices for even larger preloads. Another alternative is to split the data into multiple sub-accounts and use separate disks for each sub-account. If these options do not work for you, please contact support for additional solutions.
  • Erase the drive using a DoD approved erasure tool.
  • Do not send us disks that contain any other data than the preload. All drives are securely erased before being shipped back to you and we are not responsible for any data loss this may cause.
  • For preloads made in Windows, the disk must be formatted with the NTFS filesystem. FAT32 does not support files larger than 4GB and mangles all-uppercase filenames. Some USB disks are formatted with FAT32 by default, so please reformat the drive with NTFS.
  • For Linux preloads we can process drives made with ext3, ext4, or XFS filesystems.
  • For OSX preloads, please format the drive using exFAT. We cannot process drives made using the HFS+ filesystem. If your version of OSX does not support exFAT (introduced in 10.6.X), please contact our technical support team for more options.
  • In the root directory of the preload drive, create a folder specifically for the preload data. You can preload multiple accounts by creating different directories on the disk (e.g., G:\Account1, G:\Account2) and running the preload process on the respective systems.
  • For Backup for Files, it is not necessary to use any type of encryption on the drive, because data is already encrypted with the Pass Phrase that you configured when setting up the account. However, if you are required to encrypt the drive, use industry recognized software and please provide us with the encryption key in the ticket. 
  • Label the drive with the ticket number, account number/AppAssure target core/Acronis cloud node, and your company information.

 

Sending your drive to Axcient 

  • When you are ready to send your drive to Axcient, submit a ticket to our support team requesting the preload shipping address and instructions. To help us respond quickly, please specify which data center your Axcient Cloud Backups are going to.
  • You are responsible for ensuring that the disk media contains ONLY fully-encrypted data made by the software and tools supported by Axcient. We will reject data that is not in the proper encrypted format. Disk media that may have at some point contained unencrypted sensitive data must be erased using an approved method before being sent to Axcient. This is for your protection as well as ours.
  • You are responsible for prepaying for the shipping label and the return label.
  • Before preload drives leave the Axcient facility, they will be wiped of their data, to avoid the risk of a data breach in transit. We will wipe all preload drives, regardless of whether we have reason to believe the drive contained sensitive unencrypted data or not.
  • If we receive a drive that is defective, or if we cannot successfully complete a wipe for any reason, the drive cannot be returned and must be physically destroyed. If you are concerned about receiving back your own (or your customer's) drive, you must send reliable disk media that has been shipped with adequate packaging materials to protect it during transport.


     

 

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