Re: OT: which tape technology/drive to use
I'd echo Glenn's comments about airflow / ambient temp. I've had 3 DLTs (HP) die on me, all when in a non temp controlled rooms. Since we moved 2/3 into temp controlled environment I've had (touches wood) no problems with those. -- Martin Hepworth Snr Systems Administrator Solid State Logic Tel: +44 (0)1865 842300 Glenn English wrote: On Tue, 2005-01-04 at 18:48 +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote: Is DLT a sensible choice at this day and age? Any caveats with above drives, if any? Sorry for the dumb questions, but I have only very limited experience with tape backups. I'm not real experienced either. but I just went from DDS4 to DLT (VS160 from Quantum), and I like it a whole lot. The drive is expensive and the tapes cost a fortune, but I had the same complaint about DDS longevity you do, and from my research, I'm expecting DLT to be a significant improvement. The VS160 is also a whole lot faster. On my system, IDE disks (DMA, idebus=66) couldn't stream it -- SCSI and SATA can. One note: If you go with DLT anything like mine, be *sure* to keep a decent airflow on it or it will get awfully hot. ** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote confirms that this email message has been swept for the presence of computer viruses and is believed to be clean. **
Re: OT: which tape technology/drive to use
On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 at 6:48pm, Eugen Leitl wrote > I'm looking at DLT for a successor (40/80 GB DLTVS from IBM, or a PV > 110T 80/160 GB DLT VS160 from Dell. > > Is DLT a sensible choice at this day and age? Any caveats with above > drives, if any? Sorry for the dumb questions, but I have only very > limited experience with tape backups. If I were looking these days, I'd look hard at LTO or LTO2. I don't know what the cost is vs. DLT, but LTO has some nice features (like a hardware compression algorithm that actually recognizes incompressible data and doesn't try to compress it (and waste tape)). -- Joshua Baker-LePain Department of Biomedical Engineering Duke University
Re: OT: which tape technology/drive to use
On Tue, 2005-01-04 at 18:48 +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Is DLT a sensible choice at this day and age? Any caveats with above > drives, if any? Sorry for the dumb questions, but I have only very > limited experience with tape backups. I'm not real experienced either. but I just went from DDS4 to DLT (VS160 from Quantum), and I like it a whole lot. The drive is expensive and the tapes cost a fortune, but I had the same complaint about DDS longevity you do, and from my research, I'm expecting DLT to be a significant improvement. The VS160 is also a whole lot faster. On my system, IDE disks (DMA, idebus=66) couldn't stream it -- SCSI and SATA can. One note: If you go with DLT anything like mine, be *sure* to keep a decent airflow on it or it will get awfully hot. -- Glenn English [EMAIL PROTECTED]
OT: which tape technology/drive to use
Sorry for an off-topic question, but I figure this is the forum where I would get the best reponses. My employer's backup server has bitten the dust after some 5-6 years of faithful use, so I'm currently shopping for a replacement system(s; plural since we're getting an identical couple to minimize downtime). We've been using DAT (DDS3) systems, which were not very satisfactory in regards to cartrige and drive longevity both (the server room is unfortunately quite dusty, for time being). I'm looking at DLT for a successor (40/80 GB DLTVS from IBM, or a PV 110T 80/160 GB DLT VS160 from Dell. Is DLT a sensible choice at this day and age? Any caveats with above drives, if any? Sorry for the dumb questions, but I have only very limited experience with tape backups. TIA, Eugen Leitl
talk on tape technology -- New Jersey
Our local unix sys admin group has scheduled a talk on the current state of tape technology. For those in the New Jersey, USA area I've included the announcement. Next $GROUPNAME Meeting, Thursday March 27th,2003. 7:00pm Social, 7:30pm speaker Where: Rutgers Core Bldg (link to directions below) Our speaker will be Mike McCorkle, National Technical Support Manager for Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. His topic, A Plethora of Open Systems Tape Options for Disaster Recovery, will give you an overview of the role that magnetic tape plays in Disaster Recovery planning. Mike will discuss how backup media has changed over the years and the current demand for high capacity high-speed data storage tape. An abundance of tape drive choices are available today and more expected in the coming year. There may be one that fits your backup needs better than another; Mike will offer insight about making the right choices. Mike McCorkle's presentation will be a high level primer on magnetic tape systems. Mike will discuss how backup media has changed over the years, driven by a demand for high capacity tapes with high-speed data transfer and improved reliability of tape storage systems. Refreshments will be provided. Directions are available on our web page: http://www.groupname.org/directions-rutgers-nb.html PLEASE send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] if you are attending so we have a headcount. THANKS! * I hear there may be a drawing too, so please bring a business card. * As always, $GROUPNAME meetings are open to the public, so please invite anyone you think may be interested. See you there, Gary Fox [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ GROUPNAME mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.groupname.org/mailman/listinfo/groupname -- Jon H. LaBadie [EMAIL PROTECTED] JG Computing 4455 Province Line Road(609) 252-0159 Princeton, NJ 08540-4322 (609) 683-7220 (fax)
Re: Tape technology
[ On Thursday, September 12, 2002 at 10:28:13 (+0200), Brian Jonnes wrote: ] > Subject: Re: Tape technology > > > about 1600 USD at the time. Is it as dependable as tape? Time will > > tell. Can you take it offsite? In a sense, yes, by cycling enough > > drives thru each slot in the array and letting the raid rebuild Well it wouldn't work well that way, though with a mirror of a pair of mirrors you could remove either underlying pair of mirrored drives, then add a new pair of mirrored drives and re-construct the outer mirror. That way you'd have two copies of the data -- one could go off-site for reduncancy and disaster recovery purposes and one could stay on-site for quick retrieval. Maxtor announced low-priced 320GB drives just the other day > I'm not really keen on this idea. Although relative to the price of a DDS > drive it is affordable (for just one or two harddrives). My main problem is > that the drives will be handled by average users. Hrm. Put the drives in canisters. Good ones add to the cost, but that's the only way you'll be easily able to hot-swap ATA drives anyway. By this point I probably wouldn't be using amanda though -- unless I had disk-full clients that couldn't run rsync. -- Greg A. Woods +1 416 218-0098;<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Planix, Inc. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; VE3TCP; Secrets of the Weird <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: Tape technology
On Thursday 12 September 2002 04:28, Brian Jonnes wrote: >First off, thanks to all for the info; I at least now have a base > from which to start. > >> the small business with say 5-10 major machines to backup, a >> dedicated software raid server with a rack of big drives, >> running rsync, also has a cost and speed advantage. I know of >> one such setup with a capacity of 320 gigs in 4 160 gig drives >> that does its > >Hell, you might as well start talking Coda to me. Which is another >possibility. > >> about 1600 USD at the time. Is it as dependable as tape? Time >> will tell. Can you take it offsite? In a sense, yes, by >> cycling enough drives thru each slot in the array and letting >> the raid rebuild > >I'm not really keen on this idea. Although relative to the price > of a DDS drive it is affordable (for just one or two harddrives). > My main problem is that the drives will be handled by average > users. Hrm. > >..Brian We at first were going to use some removable drive bays, but had trouble with the ata-133 settings and the extra cabling, so the removeable kits are still on the shelf. They work fine with ata100 stuff though as we're doing that with video drives for program delay and transport now. But thats temporary since the mpeg-2 standard doesn't do closed captioning which gets us phone calls from the hard of hearing folks. We only do that when the real dvc-pro machine is down for service, its our "program" backup. Now if we could figure out how to automate the removal and replacement of several hundred surface mounted electrolytic capacitors when one of them starts pixelizing. Its hell on one's back, sitting at the bench working under a magnifying lamp doing that, takes 3 or 4 days to go all the way thru one of those $3k-$7k+ machines. Thats the major failure mechanism for a dvc-pro tape machine. :-( -- Cheers, Gene AMD K6-III@500mhz 320M Athlon1600XP@1400mhz 512M 99.15% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
Re: Tape technology
First off, thanks to all for the info; I at least now have a base from which to start. > the small business with say 5-10 major machines to backup, a > dedicated software raid server with a rack of big drives, running > rsync, also has a cost and speed advantage. I know of one such > setup with a capacity of 320 gigs in 4 160 gig drives that does its Hell, you might as well start talking Coda to me. Which is another possibility. > about 1600 USD at the time. Is it as dependable as tape? Time will > tell. Can you take it offsite? In a sense, yes, by cycling enough > drives thru each slot in the array and letting the raid rebuild I'm not really keen on this idea. Although relative to the price of a DDS drive it is affordable (for just one or two harddrives). My main problem is that the drives will be handled by average users. Hrm. ..Brian -- Init Systems - Linux consulting 031 767-0139082 769-2320[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Tape technology
On Fri, 6 Sep 2002, Gene Heskett wrote: >On Friday 06 September 2002 13:24, Brandon D. Valentine wrote: >> >>s/They're/Their/ >>s/GB/TB/ >> >You've been using vi too long, we can tell. And sed and perl too. [ This email written in vim, the one true editor. ;-) ] -- Brandon D. Valentine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Computer Geek, Center for Structural Biology "This isn't rocket science -- but it _is_ computer science." - Terry Lambert on [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Tape technology
I've just started using SDLT, and it's the best thing since sliced bread - fast - very fast, high capacity (110G native). Very nice. |-Original Message- |From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] |[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Brian Jonnes |Sent: Friday, 6 September 2002 18:43 |To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] |Subject: Tape technology | | |Hi all, | |Perhaps this is not quite the place for this question, but I |hope it won't |offend anyone ;) | |I will be looking to get a new tape drive, but am not very |familiar with the |current technology. I have heard of DDS, DAT and have used |Travan. As far as |I'm concerned, the Travan is out of the question, 'cause the |tapes are so |expensive (and apparently they are now obsolete?). | |So; what are the opinions of this list? (...?) | |..Brian |-- |Init Systems - Linux consulting |031 767-0139082 769-2320[EMAIL PROTECTED] | |
Re: Tape technology
On Friday 06 September 2002 13:24, Brandon D. Valentine wrote: >On Fri, 6 Sep 2002, Brandon D. Valentine wrote: >>They're roadmap takes them up to SAIT-4 at 4GB native capacity by >> 2010. > >s/They're/Their/ >s/GB/TB/ > >=) You've been using vi too long, we can tell. -- Cheers, Gene AMD K6-III@500mhz 320M Athlon1600XP@1400mhz 512M 99.14% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
Re: Tape technology
On Fri, 6 Sep 2002, Brandon D. Valentine wrote: >They're roadmap takes them up to SAIT-4 at 4GB native capacity by 2010. s/They're/Their/ s/GB/TB/ =) -- Brandon D. Valentine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Computer Geek, Center for Structural Biology "This isn't rocket science -- but it _is_ computer science." - Terry Lambert on [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Tape technology
On Fri, 6 Sep 2002, Brian Jonnes wrote: >I will be looking to get a new tape drive, but am not very familiar with the >current technology. I have heard of DDS, DAT and have used Travan. As far as >I'm concerned, the Travan is out of the question, 'cause the tapes are so >expensive (and apparently they are now obsolete?). As Gene Heskett indicated elsewhere in the thread the appropriate tape technology depends on your budget and intended use. DAT/DDS is perfect for a home user. Far better than QIC/Travan ever was in terms of the price to performance ratio. However, I wouldn't currently sink any money into it as a new solution for commerical/business use. Sony has announced that DDS4 is the end of the road for DAT based backup technology. They're transitioning entirely to AIT. I've been using AIT for going on three years now and I've been extremely happy with it. It's more expensive than DAT formats, but it's getting cheaper. I've used AIT1 for the past three years and am currently transitioning to AIT3 technology. AIT1 is 35GB native capacity, AIT2 is 50GB and AIT3 is 100GB native capacity. With the release of AIT3 drives and tapes the prices on AIT1 are falling to where they can begin to compete with DDS4 -- which is limited to 20GB. Plus AIT drives can stream at or near the speed of a conventional hard disk in my experience. Amanda does an excellent job of keeping the drive busy via taper. DDS is a 4mm tape format and AIT is an 8mm tape format. Both of these are rather small form factor cartridges which make for easy storage. Both technologies achieve their capacity through helical scan technology and use double-reel cartridges. LTO is currently positioned to replace DLT in the high-end tape market. LTO stands for linear tape-open and the cartridges contain a single reel of tape which is wound onto a reel in the drive instead of remaining in the cartridge. Linear tape technologies like this achieve their density by cramming a whole buncha tape into a really big cartridge, leaving no room for a second reel. I get the willies at the thought of my tape being wound out of the cartridge and into the drive, but it seesm to work fairly reliably. It it's "high-capacity" format, Ultrium, LTO currently supports tapes of 100GB or 200GB native capacity. Personally at the prices they want for those suckers I'd just as soon buy a 100GB native capacity AIT3 drive with a fat stack of tapes. The AIT3 cartridges are small and easy to store and if you're planning to use amanda -- where you likely rewrite the tapes every couple of weeks -- it's hard to beat AIT's Advanced Metal Evaporate tape medium and the fact that you can actually afford to replace AIT tapes when, not if, you have one wear out. Also, Sony will release SAIT-1 towards the end of this year which is their own single-reel cartridge format -- though they're sticking with helical scan instead of linear tape technology. SAIT-1 will debut at 500GB native capacity in a cartridge whose size is equivalent to that of an LTO cartridge. They're roadmap takes them up to SAIT-4 at 4GB native capacity by 2010. Crazy man. Hope I've provided some food for thought, -- Brandon D. Valentine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Computer Geek, Center for Structural Biology "This isn't rocket science -- but it _is_ computer science." - Terry Lambert on [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Tape technology
On Friday 06 September 2002 04:43, Brian Jonnes wrote: >Hi all, > >Perhaps this is not quite the place for this question, but I hope > it won't offend anyone ;) > >I will be looking to get a new tape drive, but am not very > familiar with the current technology. I have heard of DDS, DAT > and have used Travan. As far as I'm concerned, the Travan is out > of the question, 'cause the tapes are so expensive (and > apparently they are now obsolete?). > >So; what are the opinions of this list? (...?) In most cases, the terms DDS and DAT mean essentially the same thing, as in a small cassette used in a helical track technology drive, a smaller version of your home vcr mechanism. Such DDS# numbers as you see indicate the density ability of the formulation, with DDS4 being the current top of the line, and holding (IIRC) 20gb uncompressed. Here at home, I use DDS2, which puts 4gb uncompressed on a 120 meter tape, in a changer mechanism that holds 4 tapes. This, backing up 50 some gigs, using software compression where it does some good, seems to be averaging about 60% useage per tape, so I have a little room for expansion yet. IMO, the driving force behind the DAT/DDS style is the relative price of the tapes. A 10 pack of 120 meter DDS2's, from some ebay dealer, will generaly cost you around 50 USD including the rediculous shipping some tag on. The service life of the tape is something I can't testify to yet, I put 20 tapes into a 7 day dumpcycle about a year ago, in a then brand new Seagate/Compaq 4586np drive and they are still in service with no failures. I've had to hand cycle the cleaning tape in the 4th slot into use maybe 4 times in this same time frame. IMO its a decent method for the home user just because its an affordable format, and with all the other formats either not having enough capacity, or costing 50+ USD per tape, its the only format on the radar screen. Would I attempt to do a commercial business with it? Today, a strong yes given a robot changer with enough slots, no for single tape only decks as they just wouldn't have the capacity. But for the small business with say 5-10 major machines to backup, a dedicated software raid server with a rack of big drives, running rsync, also has a cost and speed advantage. I know of one such setup with a capacity of 320 gigs in 4 160 gig drives that does its nightly thing in lots less time than tape could since its on a 100baseT and can r/w at 50+megs a second. Built inhouse, it cost about 1600 USD at the time. Is it as dependable as tape? Time will tell. Can you take it offsite? In a sense, yes, by cycling enough drives thru each slot in the array and letting the raid rebuild itself while that removed drive goes offsite to join 3 others on a regular rotation schedule. Its not being at this site (yet). -- Cheers, Gene AMD K6-III@500mhz 320M Athlon1600XP@1400mhz 512M 99.14% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
Tape technology
Hi all, Perhaps this is not quite the place for this question, but I hope it won't offend anyone ;) I will be looking to get a new tape drive, but am not very familiar with the current technology. I have heard of DDS, DAT and have used Travan. As far as I'm concerned, the Travan is out of the question, 'cause the tapes are so expensive (and apparently they are now obsolete?). So; what are the opinions of this list? (...?) ..Brian -- Init Systems - Linux consulting 031 767-0139082 769-2320[EMAIL PROTECTED]
