On 2/5/08, Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > You can get 1TB drives (SATA) for around $250. > > Right, but that's $0.25/GB. Smaller disks are cheaper, unless your > data set is only just over 750 GB and not expected to grow.
Well, the problem with disk to disk in general is that the space is finite. Unless you have a big JBOD with an expandable RAID system, then when you hit the end of the disk, you're done. You can always add more tapes to a tape set. Not to mention that LTO4 is 800GB uncompressed, and (supposedly) 1.6TB compressed, and the prices on them should be dropping soon. So an 8-tape autoloader can theoretically hold 12.8TB before needing new tapes. In reality, you would probably be lucky to get 1TB per tape, dropping you down to 8TB before needing to rotate tapes. And really, even when you add the price of an autoloader, the price isn't that much. I just spec'd out the autoloader that Dell is selling, and added everything under the sun to it except backup software. So, the autoloader with 20 LTO3 tapes comes to $6717. If you divide that by GB in the 20 tapes (20*400GB), you come to $0.83/GB. It is considerably higher then the disk price, but given that it is expandable and scalable, it may be worth it. That said, Dell's price is a little high for my taste :-) _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
