>* DAT Tape drive - DDS3 or DDS4 attached to a PowerMac 7300,
>probably Sony (or LaCie which I think uses a Sony mechanism), no
>particular reason to go with Sony.
>* Retrospect 4.3 with clients on each of the Macs.
I've had a lot of problems with the Tape changer put out by Sony.
The one I have is 8 tapes (or 7+cleaning, but Retrospect for Mac
doesn't support cleaning tape!!)
I use to back up about 60 Macs using two DDS3 tape changers by Sony.
That got to be way to much of a burden because of tape hassles, Tape
Changer problems. I used nothing but Sony tapes in these units as
the Maxell, HP, and other brands had an average tape failure of 1 in
8.
Even with Retrospect set on "Skip bad media" it didn't work 100%
My solution was to get a single Quantum 7000 DLT. Bang for the buck,
this drive has been working for me for over a year and I've never had
a problem related to the drive or any of the tapes. I've restored
data several times as well to both Macs and NT machines. All of them
worked without a flaw. I currently only backup about 25 machines
every night.
Our department probably has about 10 of the DAT tape drives sitting
around now because they don't work properly. I know that two of the
tape changers are dead and would cost $700 to fix, and the other two
are only being used for single machine backups now. We got a DLT
tape changer that cost a small fortune, but I think in the 2 years it
has been operating, it has already paid for itself. It is connected
to an NT box and except for Adminstrative problems with getting the
right software, it has been flawless as well. (They started with
some other over priced software and it was very hard to tell if it
was even working, but now use Retrospect)
BTW - in all, our department owns 6 of the Sony Tape Changers. 2 I
know for sure are dead, 2 are being used, and the other 2 are on a
shelf, I don't know status. We also owned two HP 18000, 6 tape tape
changers. Those both work and are now doing single NT Server backup,
directly connected to the NT server.
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