> > a little off-topic but I'm looking into replacing our old DDS4 > > tape drive which is now too small. > > Our choice now looks like LTO, AIT or DLT as our total backup size > > is now 80Gb. Has anyone got any good/bad experiences with any of > > these technologies? I'm assuming that all will be recognised by > > SuSE on our servier which has both SATA and SCSI. What's the > > cheapest to buy and run? > We currently use LTO. It works ok - for a tape. As all tapes it is > slow as hell > for recovery case, a LTO media is mechanically robust but can't be > used that often (we change media after 15 backup cycles and already > had rejected tapes).
We have three LTO drives; life cycle of a tape is MUCH MUCH longer than that. > Next time we need to change backup system we will go to USB/eSATA > disks - one disk for each tape media we currently have in use: > Pro: > - you don't need an expensive tape-drive > - you can already have 1TB per media You can get 1TB drives? > - you can reuse such a disk much more often then 15 times Not likely if you are trundling them back and forth between an offsite backup location. The durability of a caddied drive isn't event remotely close to that of a magnetic tape. Not even close. > Contra: > - a single media is a bit more expensive > - a disk is not as robust as a tape media Not even close. > - a disk _may_ not be usable as long as a tape media It won't be. > - at least 3.5" disks are a little bit bigger then LTO tape media > This is not a solution for a 1000 people company, but for a server > with up to a > terrabyte online storage it is a robust, easy to handle, relatively > cheap and Not robust. Not easy to handle (*FRAGILE*) and certainly NOT electromagnetically robust; one good jolt of static electricity and your backup is fried. Magnetic tape is amazingly resilient. > reliable solution. It may not be a solution if you have to archive > financial > data for your local tax institute - IANAL. But if you "only" have to > deal with important data it is better then most solutions I know about. -- -- Adam Tauno Williams Network & Systems Administrator Consultant - http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com Developer - http://www.opengroupware.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
