Systematically backing up to CD still seems the best option. I have a
dual layer DVD burner but have seen reports of up to 30% of DVD-Rs
have errors.
Tapes are a very inconvenient and expensive back-up option. They need
exercising and comprehensively labeling their contents is difficult.
Spooling through a long tape just to get at a simple file is tedious.
DVD-RAM Dual layer (encased) would be my choice, but it seems to have
little support and there is nothing worse than having old technology
or even worse just one very expensive drive (like a tape) to read all
your backups.
Peter
On 26 Oct 2005, at 1:54 AM, Jeff Walther wrote:
At 02:54 -0400 10/25/2005, owner wrote:
I hope my 130gig Maxtor doesn't die because I went iTunes happy
this weekend
and decided rip my CD collection and my iTunes folder went from
10gig to
43gig. This does not inspire confidence.
HP 6 X 24 GB autoloaders are going for $10 - $20 on Ebay these
days. They're heavy, so shipping will run another ~$20. Factor in
a little more cost for the risk (fairly low) that you'll get one
that doesn't work.
An autoloader is a juke box for tapes. On this particular model,
the tapes have a raw capacity of 12 GB and a nominal compressed
(based on average 2:1 compression, YMMV) capacity of 24 GB. The
autoloader holds 6 tapes, so that's 72 - 144 GB of back up
capacity, without changing tapes.
Retrospect 4.x and up have built-in support for the HP autoloaders.
So if you're running 9.x or don't mind booting into 9.x to run
backup, you can pick up a copy of Retrospect 4.x cheaply (not
Retrospect Express; Express lacks tape support).
OSX support in Retrospect begins with Retrospect 5.x. I'm not sure
which versions of Retrospect work with which versions of OSX.
The 12/24 tapes are DAT DDS3 tapes. They retail for about $4 each,
but can commonly be picked up on Ebay for about $2 each total
including shipping. I lose a few auctions bidding at that pricing.
but I win enough to pick up plenty of new still wrapped tapes.
There are other backup schemes available, of course. The mix of
advantages and disadvantages vary from scheme to scheme. Tape (DAT
tape anyway) is cheap and allows one to make multiple backups so
that you can keep one or more copies off-site (in safe deposit box,
e.g.). On the other hand, tape is slow.
Extra hard drives are faster, but you can't really do multiple
copies unless you purchase additional extra drives. That's a lot
more expensive than extra tapes. Also, unless you're disciplined
about keeping backup hard drives unplugged and disconnected after
backup, a power surge or lightening strike that kills your main
drive will take out your backup drives as well. And they don't fit
in safe deposit boxes very well. :-)
Still, any backup scheme is better than none, and for some folks, a
duplicate hard drive will be the way to go. The best backup scheme
is the one you actually use. It's no good having backup hardware
if you never run any backups.
DAT saw a significant increase in speed from DDS3 (12/24 GB) to
DDS4 (20/40 GB) but DDS4 drives are still pretty expensive. The 6
X 40 autoloaders are still $150 - $200 on the used market.
Brand new DAT tape drives are expensive and can cost as much as
your computer system, without trying too hard. Other formats of
tape drive may be cheaper, but typically use much more expensive
media.
I am a firm believer in the importance of multiple backups ever
since I lost a drive ten years ago and found that my backup was
toast too. I always keep at least two backups going--although I'm
bad about not running it often enough. I really ought to use
Retrospects scheduling feature for automatic backups.
Jeff Walther
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